This holiday season, Glow Gardens Christmas lights display is returning as a drive-through event at Milner’s Darvonda Nurseries greenhouse.
Cruise through a winter wonderland of spectacular light installations!
— Glow Langley (@glow_langley) October 3, 2021
Back by popular demand, this season's #GlowLangley will be a drive-through event 🚗 pic.twitter.com/xaOpMdP3xu
Darvonda owner Lawrence Jansen said the switch to a drive-through is intended to ensure the Langley event can still take place, even if pandemic restrictions have to be tightened again.
“It’s very concerning,” Jansen told the Langley Advance Times.
“We don’t want to be a part of making it worse.”
With limits on public events that keep being adjusted in response to the changing nature of the pandemic, organizers opted for a relatively sure thing – keeping people safe in their own bubbles by remaining in their cars.
“We feel we are well positioned to operate, no matter what,” Jansen commented.
READ ALSO: Sold out for 2020, Langley’s Glow Gardens adds extra week in January
Running from Nov. 18 to Jan. 1 at 6690 216th St., the Langley event offers a 20-minute drive-through, contactless journey featuring nearly a million lights, a glacial foyer where it’s always snowing, a 100-foot animated light tunnel, and a three-storey Christmas tree, princesses and Santa.
Tickets must be purchased in advance, online at www.glowgardens.com/langley-christmas, and e-tickets will be scanned through the vehicle window upon arrival.
There is a maximum of eight occupants per vehicle, and admission is $34.99 per car weekdays, $39.99 weekends and holidays, plus applicable taxes and service charges.
No pedestrians will be permitted.
Guests are asked to remain in their vehicles at all times, but may roll down windows for photos and videos.
To remain contactless, there is no stopping or pull-outs on the light journey, and no public washrooms.
Next year, the hope is a return to an indoor pedestrian event will be possible.
“Our goal is, as soon as we can, [to] come back indoors,” Jansen remarked.
READ ALSO: In-person instead of online: how a Langley business is bucking the trend
Glow started at Darvonda in 2017 in Langley, “because we weren’t busy enough in the winter,” Jansen explained.
It has since expanded to shows in Edmonton, Saskatoon and Halifax in Canada, under partnership agreements where Glow provides expertise and lighting to the show operators, an arrangement Jansen describes as “pseudo-franchise.”
Glow also directly operates a show in Cincinnati.
At the moment, Jansen said it isn’t clear whether the other shows, which are indoor events, will be proceeding.
“I think that’s going to be a game-day decision,” Jansen said.
Have a story tip? Email: dan.ferguson@langleyadvancetimes.com
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