TUNKHANNOCK, Pa. — For the 8th straight year, a golf course in Wyoming County has transformed into a holiday light display. The Festival of Lights is a two-and-a-half-mile drive-through light display at Stone Hedge Golf Course near Tunkhannock.
"We've never counted, but I would say there's somewhere between 4-5 million lights; there has to be," Karen Force Ruark said.
The dazzling display opens for the season tonight, but Stone Hedge Owner Karen Force Ruark says preparing for the Festival of Lights is a year-round process.
"We start in January with building our designs for our new displays, making decisions about what is it going to be, what theme we are going to add this year. And then we draw them, send them to a welder. He builds the frames, and then we attach all the lights to them," Force Ruark said.
Crews start putting up the lights in October.
"So it takes us a good six weeks to get all the displays up, all the ground lights on, do all the testing, do any repairs that need to be done, so that it's actually picture perfect when it opens," Force Ruark said.
There's a lot to see. This year, the patriotic display was expanded as a tribute to veterans and first responders.
"Our tunnels are part of our signature thing, so this year, we actually created a flag tunnel. It's just kind of a neat addition to the patriotic," Force Ruark said.
The biggest display is the river, which has over a quarter of a million lights!
"Each light, it's an individual strand, it takes three guys probably five days to lay the river. They literally have to walk up and back continuously until they've got all the strands laid down," Force Ruark said.
The Festival of Lights at Stone Hedge Golf Course opens tonight and will be open every night through December 31st, except for Christmas Eve. A portion of the admission fee will be donated to local non-profits.