Friday’s lighting ceremony will give Riverfront Park holiday glow

’Tis the season – for lights to be strung on everything. Trees. Buildings. The occasional pet. An urban park.

This holiday season, Spokane’s Riverfront Park will feature the first of what’s hoped to be an annual event, the Spokane Winter Glow Spectacular. Thirty displays showing different holiday scenes will ring an inner loop in the park, and they’ll twinkle through the month of December.

The event is free to the public, and horse-drawn carriage rides will be available.

The event was conceived by Jerry Schmidt, one of the founders of Hoopfest.

“Jerry dreamed this up. This is all his brainchild,” said Courtney Schmidt, the event’s coordinator, who is married to Jerry’s nephew. She said he wanted Spokane “to be lit up like it was when he was a kid, in the ’60s and ’70s.”

The event’s volunteers are busily setting up the displays sponsored by Washington Trust Bank, Avista, Gonzaga University and many more, as well as the Animal Light Zoo, which features jumping salmon, a polar bear and a peacock, among others.

Combined with the lights strung on the Rotary Riverfront Fountain and the Looff Carrousel’s roof by First Night Spokane, as well as those throughout downtown thanks to the Downtown Spokane Partnership, this winter will be luminous, said Sam Song, acting director of Riverfront Park.

“I think this winter season will prove to be the most festive,” Song said. “After people go to the symphony or see the Grinch, they can come to the park.”

It’s not just yuletide joy, said Song, noting that the month-long event fills a blank spot in the park’s calendar.

“This is traditionally a slow season,” Song said. “They’ll come and hopefully patronize the Ice Palace, the Carrousel, the sky ride. So it’s a revenue opportunity as well.”

The park for years has lit the tree near the intersection of Spokane Falls Boulevard and North Wall Street, which is referred to as the Christmas Tree. In the park’s master plan, the guiding document for this month’s successful park bond, are bigger dreams of a Christmas tree lighting ceremony that could draw an estimated 3,000 attendees.

The kickoff lighting ceremony for the Spokane Winter Glow Spectacular is Friday at 6:30 p.m. The ceremony is free, as is the rest of the event, which runs through Jan. 1 and will be open nightly from 5 to 9 p.m.

Carriage rides will cost $5 for kids, $10 for adults, although STCU is still offering free carriage rides from the corner of Wall and Main, Fridays through Sundays.