Piedmont Pit Stops: Behind the scenes of the Tanglewood Festival of Lights

On a Sunday in early December, cars are already snaking around a curve near the gates of the Tanglewood Festival of Lights in Clemmons — even though the sun hasn’t set. People have come prepared to wait: there’s even a group tailgating near the front of the line. 

“So we get here at four, and the gates open at six, so we hang out for two hours with the kids and have hot chocolate and drinks and food, and then we roll right in,” says attendee Tiffany Kratzer. She’s been coming to the show with her family since they moved to the area 11 years ago. 

“The kids love it,” she says. “It's become a holiday tradition for sure.” 

It’s a tradition shared by thousands of Triad residents. Each year, about 50,000 cars pass through the gates to drive through the park’s one million Christmas lights. The show brings in over $3 million in gross revenue, with net proceeds of around $600,000 going directly to Forsyth County’s coffers. 

Chris Weavil, Forsyth County’s parks and recreation director, says those numbers would have been unimaginable in 1991 when park leaders first started thinking about launching a Christmas show to make some extra money. 

“They'd seen some light shows throughout the country, one being in Oglebay in Wheeling, West Virginia,” says Weavil. “They saw some of the revenues that they were gaining off of that. And they thought, ‘Well, hey, why don't we try that?’”

So, they bought 25 light displays and hoped for the best. 

“I was a very young man at that particular point in time, 21 years old. They said, ‘You go stand up there, and when the traffic comes in, you move them around, you split them up into two lanes, and we'll maintain traffic that way,” he said. “And I stood there for four hours, and I think three cars came.”

Traffic did eventually start to pick up though. They ended up making back all the money they spent on the displays in Year One — park leaders thought that would take 20. 

Its popularity allowed them to invest more in the show, buying new lights and hiring staff to help with installation — a process Weavil says is far from simple. 

“If you've ever untangled Christmas lights at your house, you can only imagine,” he said. “We've got close to a million lights, and everything comes apart. Everything is like a puzzle.”

They begin that puzzle each year in July. It takes about 40 team members to get the miles-long show ready by November 1. 

Drew Wiles, who manages operations, says the setup is a little different each year.

“What we think sets us apart is we kind of tell a story, in a way, with how our lights are set up,” Wiles says. “So when you're going through the stables area of the park, it's got farm animals, horses, stuff like that. And so every year, we kind of take a look at it from a strategic standpoint and see what we like, whether we feel it fits where it's at.”

The process became much easier when they switched from incandescent bulbs to LEDs — it used to take months just to replace burnt-out lights. The change also dropped the nightly power bill from $1,000 to $600. 

It’s one of many kinks staffers have worked out in the show’s 33 years. Now, they’ve got a timer system to save them from flipping breakers for hours, have learned exactly how long it takes to get each car through the entrance gate and did a traffic study to figure out how to keep the line moving.

But Wiles says all that prep still doesn’t prevent the occasional mishap.  

“We've had all types of crazy stuff,” he says. “We've had animals get loose in the park at night. We've had to chase dogs down to get them back to their owner. We've had whole portions of the show go out. We've had buildings not catch on fire, but get pretty close from electrical problems.”

Weather is another recurring issue. A thunderstorm once sent giant inflatable ornaments into the woods. Flooding left displays in one section of the park completely underwater. And ice storms have made roadways impassable. Most of the time though, their maintenance team is able to jump into action, and the show goes on. 

Chris Weavil says it’s worth the work. 

“Folks that were my age when they started, you know, now they've got families. They've got kids that are bringing grandkids,” he says. “So it’s been neat to see that.”

The show is set to run this year through New Year’s Day. It’ll take another two months to break down the displays. The whole process will start all over again come July.