File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Victor Kaisar

Wildlights 2024

Annual Wildlights holiday display in Kamloops to begin on Dec. 13

Nov 15, 2024 | 7:00 AM

KAMLOOPS — The 2024 edition of Wildlights will get take over the BC Wildlife Park in Kamloops in exactly four weeks time, on Dec. 13.

BC Wildlife Park General Manager Glenn Grant says there will also be several new additions during the 27th edition of the annual holiday lights display, which features well over one million lights.

“One thing that is new this year on the Great Lawn in Santa’s Village is a 30-foot table Christmas tree,” Grant said. “It’s got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lights in it, and it’s all blue and white. As well, the giant present that was on the lawn has been doubled, so there is another one right beside it.”

“Also, in the dinosaur scene, the guys have made a big Flintstone car so you can actually sit in Fred Flintstone’s car and get some pictures taken.”

Other regular favourites – like Uncle Chris the Clown, Disney princesses, the Wildlife Express train, and Santa and Mrs. Claus – will all be back this year, Grant said.

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“We’ll have a professional photographer sitting here to take photos with Santa digitally and then forward them to you,” Grant said. “We tried that last year for a couple of days and it was really successful so we’re going to expand on that this year.”

As has been the case since the 2022 edition, the opening night of Wildlights — Dec. 13 — will be a sensory friendly evening in partnership with the Canucks Autism Network.

“We’ll have everything lit up and going but a lot of the music will be either turned down or turned off,” Grant said. “And the theatre instead of it being used for our movie shorts, it will be a sensory friendly gathering area.”

Work to set up some of the lights displays is already underway, with Grant noting that park staff are hoping to equal or better last year’s record attendance levels.

“We had more than 28,000 people last year,” Grant said. “Mind you, the weather was really good, but we also had some really great features last year that I think people really wanted to see.”

“I hope it’s well attended because Wildlights gives us 25 per cent of our attendance and 25 per cent of our revenue for the entire year.”

Wildlights will run nightly between 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. until Jan. 5, 2025, with the exception of Christmas Day. Information on tickets and other details available can be found here.