It’s not lights out for Redding’s Garden of Lights holiday show.
An aged part of the McConnell Arboretum and Botanical Garden’s electric system conked out on Sunday night, Nov. 9, cutting power throughout the west side of the Redding arboretum’s campus.
The power loss became evident as workers began testing the 2 million lights that are part of the annual holiday show that’s set up throughout the arboretum, said Seth McGaha, spokesman for Turtle Bay Exploration Park, the arboretum’s nonprofit owner.
The nursery was also affected.
“We’re actively working on it. We are expecting to have power back by Friday,” said McGaha on Thursday, Nov. 13.
While the exact cause of the outage wasn’t known, McGaha said arboretum officials suspect it was old age.
He said: “It was an old system, like about 23 years old. So I think just old age. This is just an older part of the system that needed to be replaced anyway.”
The cost to fix the system will amount to a couple thousand dollars, McGaha said. Early repair estimates had been much higher, but “we found a solution that’s a very minimum cost,” he said.
McGaha said “There’s no delay in the light show,” which opens for the holidays on Nov. 21 through Jan. 4 at 844 Sundial Bridge Drive.
The holiday light show that got its start with $250,000 from the City of Redding’s tourism fund sells about 80,000 tickets a year, with about 40% of the attendees coming from outside Shasta County, he said.
In addition, the arboretum has sold about 40,000 tickets to its Glowing Wild Lantern Festival, started in 2023 and illuminates 10 acres of the gardens with animal images.
The McConnell Botanical Gardens are part of Turtle Bay’s 300-acre campus.
Michele Chandler covers dining, food, public safety and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at mrchandler@gannett.com. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
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