A mesmerising new seasonal light show at San Francisco’s Botanical Garden has turned into an unexpected hit, with sellout crowds flocking to the first large-scale nighttime attraction in the Gardens of Golden Gate Park.
Since Nov. 21, visitors have been lining up at the gate after the garden’s usual dusk closure waiting for the event, called Lightscape, to take over the park. For a ticket costing $32-$42, they can wander a one-mile walking trail that features trees, shrubs, meadows and ponds transformed into a fantasia by 1 million multicolored LED bulbs..
“There are many parts of it where I just stopped and said out loud, ‘Wow, this is beautiful,'” said Karoline Hatch-Berens, who wore 100 of her own lights on a battery-powered LED vest during her visit Thursday.
The show has been selling out all 5,600 tickets on weekend nights, with additional weeknight dates added to the schedule starting Wednesday, Dec. 10, and through its Jan. 4 closure.
Visitors view the Amazonica, Peonies and Winter Cathedral exhibit on opening night of Lightscape at the San Francisco Botanical Garden on Nov. 21. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
The gates open at 5 p.m., rain or shine, with entry times staggered every 15 minutes through 8:15 p.m. Once inside the park, people can stay as long as they can handle the cold and damp (the temperature dipped into the 40s last weekend).
The attraction closes at 9:30 p.m., and by 10:30 the lights are out “so the coyotes have plenty of their preferred hours to roam freely,” said Brendan Lange, director of advancement for the Gardens of Golden Gate Park.
The Botanical Garden normally only attracts crowds of this magnitude during the late summer Flower Piano music festival, the winter magnolia bloom and holiday free days – all daytime events.
A giant sequoia, one of the heritage trees at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, is highlighted with a light marker on the ground during opening night of Lightscape on Nov. 21. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
For nearly a decade, garden management staff have been looking for a night attraction, and they finally found the right fit in Lightscape, which is a collaborative effort between Culture Creative, an organization based in the United Kingdom, Sony Music, and the public-private partnership that runs the garden. There are sister shows at botanical gardens in Brooklyn, Chicago and San Diego, each designed to be site-specific.
Production expenses are shared by the partners, as is the revenue. It took three weeks to install the spectacle, with international and local crews working around garden visitors during the day and testing the lights at night when the park was closed.
There are other light displays in the park, including the city’s official Christmas tree at McLaren Lodge, and Naga the 100-foot sea serpent in the Rainbow Falls pond along JFK promenade. Previously, the Conservatory of Flowers got a psychedelic treatment to honor the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 2017. And Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” the laser show at Morrison Planetarium, ran for a quarter-century before ending in 2000.
Officials say Lightscape is beyond comparison. “The scale of what we have here is truly unprecedented,” said Sarah Marsh, chief experience officer for the Gardens. “The show is not holiday-specific. It is a secular celebration of winter, with the plants as the star of the show.”
Sarah Marsh, chief experience officer for the Gardens of Golden Gate Park, takes a photo for visitors as she walks through the Winter Cathedral exhibit during inaugural and opening night of Lightscape at the San Francisco Botanical Garden on Nov. 21. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
There are 12 separate zones, each with its own theme and music. The entire experience takes an hour and a half to absorb, longer if visitors take advantage of hot chocolate and kettle corn stations along the way, plus three full bars and assorted food trucks with retro neon signage. Guardrails are set up in areas where the footing is unstable, and human guards stand sentry as trail stewards.
“You can’t get lost,” said an usher. “We put up barricades like crazy.”
Jill Korengolz and Linda Ng nevertheless managed to get separated from their group on Thursday. They stood waiting outside a tunnel of white lights, which serves as a grand finale called the Winter Cathedral. Not far behind them was an enormous phosphorescent full moon,inlfated to 10-meters in diameter and lit from within. It is suspended over the Moon Viewing Garden, which became slightly disorienting when the real thing rose over the Sunset District.
“It’s nice they could arrange that,” said Korengolz, who noted that just about anywhere along the path is a good place to get separated and enjoy the spectacle. Also coming into play are the white lights on UC San Francisco medical center, looming to the south, and Christmas trees in the windows along Lincoln Way.
Sisters Adaya Gage, 4, left, and Aurora Gage, 2, run and play while experiencing the Interlace exhibit with their brother, parents and grandparents at Lightscape in the San Francisco Botanical Garden on Nov. 21. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
“It makes beautiful use of nature and makes it all blend in,” said Korengolz. “There are little spectacular pieces and this cathedral is very cool.”
Kathleen and Jillian Wagner of Noe Valley managed to hang onto their year-old son Theodore, mainly because he was strapped into a stroller and swaddled in a double-wrapped blanket.
“He really likes the lights,” said Kathleen. “You can’t find many activities for a kid his age. You can’t take him to a movie theater, so the light show was fun for him to watch without being able to fully understand what was going on. He doesn’t know Santa yet, so it’s fun to have something that he can just watch that is also in the holiday spirit.”
The Wagners shrugged off the price of admission as “life in San Francisco,” although it was free for Theodore, as it is for those age 4 and under. Tickets for kids between ages 5 and 17 are $24 during peak days. “I would do it again,” said Kathleen. “The crowds are the only downside. It was really slow to walk through it.”
Visitors walk past a Canary Island strawberry tree transformed into the Neon Strawberry Tree at Lightscape at the San Francisco Botanical Garden on Nov. 21. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
Hatch-Berens, a graphic designer who lives in the Haight, said she thought the tickets seemed a little expensive when he bought them online, “but once we got there, it was so cool that I didn’t hold a grudge over the cost.”
Her 3-year-old son, Ajax, had on a glowing neon green light belt. Ajax’s father, Glenn, risked it by not wearing lights at all. “Luckily he speaks very loudly so we can hear where he is,” Hatch-Berens said.
They were in a party of 8, spanning three generations, counting her in-laws from Chicago, who made it their seasonal starter event. They lasted for the customary hour and a half, with a stop for kettle corn for Ajax and a Fort Point Kolsch ale for his dad.
Mason Jones, 5, of San Francisco dances to the music at Lightscape at the San Francisco Botanical Garden while experiencing the sights and sounds of the Interlace exhibit with his parents Henry Jones and Desiree Miranda, not shown. (Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle)
The next day she bought tickets to return with Ajax and bring her mom, sister and nephew to start it all over again.
“The kids loved it,” she said, adding one piece of advice based on experience: “If you are going with a toddler, wrap them in lights because they run away.”
For more information and tickets, go to: gggp.org/lightscape/
This article originally published at This rare S.F. seasonal light show has become a huge surprise hit.