The Riverside “Festival of Lights” will wrap up Sunday evening, ending its 2024-25 season, which began the weekend before Thanksgiving featuring millions of lights, holiday displays, carnival rides, caroling, Santa Claus and other entertainment on the pedestrian mall.
The lights will remain lit on all holiday decorations throughout the downtown area until daybreak Monday.
The festival, which is in its 32nd year, began on the evening of Nov. 23 when Mission Inn Hotel & Spa owner Duane Roberts, members of the Riverside City Council and other guests gathered for a switch-on ceremony. That event included a free concert, featuring Matt Mauser & The Tijuana Dogs, as well as Richard Goodall, winner of the 2024 “America’s Got Talent” contest.
Roberts, who inaugurated the tradition in 1992, said in 2023 that the festival consistently draws up to 500,000 visitors over a one-month span, “all thrilled to watch the display come to life through the Holidays.”
The nightly fest has featured the century-old inn bathed in multi-colored hues, with hundreds of animated characters, including elves, toy soldiers, nutcrackers and angels visible on banisters, balconies and ledges.
Towering Christmas trees and wooden soldiers traditionally line the way outside and into the hotel, where visitors also encounter a mistletoe measuring 12-by-8 feet.
Ice skating was available on the Main Street pedestrian mall, and at the corner of Mission Inn Avenue and Lime Street, a Ferris wheel was in operation.
There has been live musical entertainment, photos with Santa Claus, as well as artisan booths and food vendors up and down the mall. The city festooned light standards and other municipal property with displays and lights.
City spokesman Phil Pitchford told City News Service $1.5 million in municipal funds were allocated for this year’s fest, compared to about $1 million in 2023.