Asheville – The 11th year of North Carolina Arboretum’s Winter Lights will open on November 15th and run through December 31st— despite the fact that thousands of tree have fallen throughout their campus. A lot of cleanup of blown debris was necessary to allow the Winter Lights to take place this year. However, no significant damage took place in the garden area. So the show can and will “go on.” This magical walk-through exhibit will be in the areas between the Baker Exhibit Center and the Education Center.
This year’s theme is “Seasons of Light” and will feature displays celebrating the natural world, including giant butterflies, flowers and mushrooms. The show will feature a few new surprises like the interactive light installation at Enchanted Oasis and the ice spires of the Winter Castle. Beloved traditions like the 50-foot Tree of Light and the animated Quilt Garden will happily of course return. Food and hot cocoa from the Bent Creek Bistro and the Cocoa Cabin will be offered, as well as live music nightly. The animatronic animals of Storytime at Woodland Cove and the Polar Express Railroad will also return.
The Winter Lights installation team typically begins installation in late July, but most of that work was blown down in hurricane Helene. That same crew and a team of contractors have now been working at an increased pace since the storm to make Winter Lights ready for the November 15th opening. Likewise, the Arboretum’s arborists and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working tirelessly for weeks to address treefalls on the property and open the main entrance road to the Arboretum. According to Brian Postelle, Marketing and PR manager, the wooded areas around the buildings were heavily impacted by the storm with thousands of trees down, therefore the trails and areas near Bent Creek will remain closed and off limits even once the Arboretum is able to reopen. Those areas are not part of the Winter Lights display and do not impact them for having a great show! All of the clean-up efforts are exemplary and extraordinary, and management certainly wishes to give an abundance of thanks to their staff and everyone who has helped.
Winter Lights is an outdoor, walk-through event, so it is important to dress accordingly with comfortable shoes and warm clothing. It is a spectacular show made by displaying over one million lights! Tickets are sold per vehicle; pets are not permitted and the price ranges from $40 to $70 for a standard vehicle that holds up to 8 people and depending on the date of entry. The event is open daily rain or shine from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm — three entry times for tickets: 6:00 pm, 7:00 pm, or 8:00 pm. Visitors can enter the show anytime between their entry time and 9:00 pm.Tickets are non-refundable and time and date-specific.
Winter Lights is North Carolina’s Arboretum’s largest fund-raising event of the year, and ticket sales for the event directly provide for employee salaries and improvements to the grounds.
Drake Fowler became the new Executive Director of the Arboretum on August 1st of this year. Fowler served as the Arboretum’s chief financial officer and deputy executive director since 2015 and succeeded George Briggs, founding Director, who announced his retirement as executive director after 37 years of leadership. Briggs began his tenure in 1987, and over the ensuing nearly four decades, guided the development of the 434-acre Arboretum from a temporary office trailer housing administrative offices into a nationally recognized attraction, including the construction of an education center and visitors’ center, 65 acres of cultivated gardens and 10 miles of trails. He has been awarded membership in North Carolina’s highest honor society, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
Fowler, a licensed and award-winning landscape architect, has for nearly a decade managed the Arboretum’s annual operating budget, currently $10 million in public and private funds. He worked closely with Briggs, and the two have collaborated on major new features and educational programs for this special place. Under them the Arboretum now serves more than 600,000 annual visitors and 100,000 students throughout North Carolina and garners support from over 20,000 household memberships.