FACTS & HISTORY

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16 FANTASTIC FANTASY IN LIGHTS FACTS
For 29 years, Fantasy In Lights continues to be the most incredible holiday light and sound show in the South – and among the top 10 in the world! Here are a few fun facts from behind the scenes:

1. Fantasy In Lights opened in 1992 with five scenes. Since then, it has grown to include more than a dozen lighted scenes with music and many with animation.
2. The original scenes were designed by professionals who formerly worked with Disney’s Imagineering department.
3. The total show includes more than 8 million lights. This is equivalent to the number of lights on 26,666 standard 6-foot tall Christmas Trees.
4. It takes a lot of electricity to keep the lights burning and a lot extension cords to deliver it – roughly 3,500 of them.
5. More than 32 miles of cable is required to power all of the sound and lights.
6. About 12 million cable ties hold all the cables in place.
7. Three of the scenes are controlled with digital show controls, just like those used in Broadway productions.
8. If you connected all of the light strings used in Fantasy In Lights, they would stretch more than 725 miles. That’s enough to outline the state of South Carolina or stretch end to end from Pine Mountain to Baltimore, Md.
9. It takes approximately 3,900 man-hours to install Fantasy In Lights; 1,780 man-hours to maintain it while the show is open; and 1,020 man-hours to disassemble it.
10. It takes six weeks to install the entire show, with each scene requiring three to four days for installation.
11. Enchanted Rainbow Forest, has 410 controlled images. This has almost three times the number of images used in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
12. Ninety-nine percent of the frames used in Fantasy In Lights are custom designed and built just for Callaway Gardens.
13. To turn on the show, it takes two workers at least 45 minutes to turn them on and another 45 minutes to turn them off at the end of the night.
14. Each scene receives a major overhaul every three to four years. This process includes rewiring and restringing with new lights.
15. Each January, Fantasy In Lights is stored in a 6,500-square-foot warehouse, where it remains until the elves visit us again in the Fall to begin another year of the spectacular show!
16. In 2016, to celebrate the 25th showing of Fantasy In Lights, a new scene titled “Snow Day” was added to the show.  Nature’s Wonderland was retired though some of its frames are incorporated into Snow Day.  Have no fear, FIL the Frog, whose name is the acronym for Fantasy In Lights, remains to entertain guests.

FANTASY IN LIGHTS HISTORY
The seed was planted, appropriately enough, by Virginia Hand Callaway. Mrs. Callaway, who was so instrumental in making Callaway Gardens one of the world’s great botanical paradises, was the first to dream of a Christmas lights show at the Pine Mountain, Ga., retreat that she co-founded with her husband, Cason Callaway.

In 2020, under the direction of Herschend Family Entertainment, a new scene titled Magical Field of Lights was added to Fantasy In Lights to mark the 28th  year of this spectacular Christmas event! The Field of Lights scene is nearly two-football fields long, featuring a Christmas tree over 10 stories tall, which will make it the tallest Christmas tree in the South.