One down. Millions more to go. It’s glow time!
Outside the City’s windows each July, you can hear the sounds of chirping birds, giggling children and one undeniable noise that ushers in the month: Click, click, click!
“That would be the sound of our staple guns,” smiles Jessica Loftis, supervisor of Maintenance and Construction. “Each July 1, our team starts hanging millions of Christmas lights, lining nearly every board of every building.”
The humming cadence of the clicks won’t stop until just before the City shines for the opening of An Old Time Christmas on November 2. Jessica’s the joy at the helm of this hardworking “Christmas Crew.” She’s filled with holiday spirit and is the keeper of a detailed binder with all the setup secrets.
“Did you know we’ll use 880,000 staples this season,” she laughs as she flips through the pages. “Everything is right here to make these next few months a smooth process for my team.”
That team is pretty tiny compared to the scale of its work. Twelve folks are the magic makers behind all the park’s lights—a job Jessica says usually takes one or two seasons of setup to get the hang of.
“There’s so much thought that goes into how they hang,” she says. “Each bulb must point in just the right direction to create that wow factor.” That precision is a priority for Jessica who says the result is worth all those hot and humid days of stapling strands. As the summer sun beats down on Lauren Woodrum’s shoulders, her mind ventures to cooler fall nights and how the magic of her work today will bring bright eyes to visitors months from now.
Let’s go back to that binder for a bit because it really is something to see. Its pages pinpoint the exact cost to pull off USA TODAY’s "Best Theme Park Holiday Event." Jessica breaks down that budget and knows where each penny is placed.
“I can tell you that a strand of lights ranges from $7.49 to $12.21,” she smiles. “Each zone of the park is on a five-year replacement rotation. We have to be that exact to preserve their brightness.”
The zones, of course, are all mapped out in that binder. A different zone’s lights are recycled every five years, even if they still work.
“An untrained eye may not notice but colors fade over time,” Jessica explains. “We don’t want to risk reds being different from new reds and so on. That could ruin the whole look we’re going for.”
The Maintenance & Construction department houses a holiday secret that could grow any Grinch’s heart three sizes when you step inside. The Christmas room is where all those bulbs are meticulously stored and organized. There are floor-to-ceiling spools that are color-coded and separated by zone. They are tagged and correspond to sections of that binder. It’s mind-blowing. It’s magical.
When all is said and done, the Christmas Crew will tack more than three million lights on buildings alone. Combined with all other lights on structures and trees, visitors will be dazzled with six-and-a-half million lights.
What goes up must come down. You may not know it but all lights come down after Christmas. Leaving them up would shorten their life and dim their brightness. What took four months to put up comes down in seven weeks.
“It’s not nearly as magical taking them down,” Lauren says. “While we think about the joy they’ll bring as they go up, we think about the memories we helped make as they come down. Then, it’s time to start planning next year and see how we can make our City shine even brighter.”
As Public Relations Manager for the Silver Dollar City Company, she is eager to tap into her journalism background to hunt down “heart tugs” to write about—those stories that celebrate…
