Snow Day in Denny Park
When the days get colder, we all hope for the magic of a Snow Day. A chance to escape the drudgery of your day and go out and play. But when days get colder, the nights get longer and that is when the magic truly happens. Is there anything more magical than a Snow Day night? For five weeks this winter, we took over Denny Park, Seattle’s oldest park, to create a magical, immersive winter light installation. In South Lake Union, every day was Snow Day.
In the fall of 2018, Friends of Denny Park & Amazon came to us with a vision of creating a family-friendly, interactive event that would drive people to South Lake Union after hours and give local businesses a boost during the holidays. Even though it doesn’t snow often in Seattle, everyone loves the excitement of a Snow Day, so we decided to recreate this feeling with an immersive lighting display in Seattle’s oldest park.
We strung over 30,000 lights throughout the park, turning it into a winter wonderland. We kicked off the festivities with a Grand Opening Party with a holiday market, beer garden, food trucks, live music, stilt walkers and more. KEXP’s DJ Troy Nelson curated a Snow Day playlist for the festivities, an ice sculptor carved a custom Snow Day installation, and attendees could get their picture taken inside a giant Snow Globe. Event goers were able to experience fun, winter activities all while taking in the immersive scene that lit up Denny Park. After the opening party, the lights remained up for 5 weeks.
Over the course of the 5 weeks, between 20,000 to 50,000 people visited Denny Park to see the lights. The holiday season was an especially wonderful time to activate the park. Providing joy to the neighborhood as well as drawing in more people to this historic park in Seattle was extremely rewarding and exciting.
With this much success and support in the first year of Snow Day, we are very excited to build on the event for next year, and all the years to come all while engaging more and more of the local community!
Check out our Snow Day Video!