Galaxy of Lights, Huntsville's brightest tradition, turns 30
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SAM 1, or "Sound and Music 1," was the show's first choreographed musical show, and is one of Byrd's favorites. Photo: Derek Lacey/Axios
Galaxy of Lights opens Friday, and its 30th anniversary edition is set to be one for the history books.
Why it matters: The extensive holiday light show is the Huntsville Botanical Garden's marquee fundraiser, drawing more than 80,000 visitors annually.
Zoom in: Planning the event is a year-round process, starting in January with a design debrief on the previous year's show, Steven Byrd told Axios Huntsville.
- Byrd, light engineer and design manager, has spent a little more than a decade working on Galaxy: six years on staff and four as a volunteer.
- Design ideas take shape in the spring and are finalized around June or July. Workers start building the displays in August.
What they're saying: "We store everything here, we build everything here, and we engineer everything here," Byrd said, of the roughly nine staffers and 20-plus volunteer team. Hundreds of volunteers help run the event nights.
Driving the news: The show's success has landed the event in the running for best in the country by USA Today's 10Best rankings. It earned second place in 2023 and 2024.
- This year's show is stepping it up with interactive features like touch-screen tablets to control an area of lights, and a projector walkway that reacts as you walk through it.
- "Each experience has a different story to tell," Byrd said of the event's 24 different zones with individual soundtracks and lights.
- There are also four concession areas instead of one. Think: sitting by the fire with a hot toddy, spiked hot cocoa or gingerbread shot.
Catch up quick: The show started in the 90s with a few dozen wire frames, after garden leadership saw the light show at Callaway Gardens and decided to create their own event to raise money.
- It's since grown in concept and scope, Byrd said.
Flashback: Byrd, a 27-year-old Huntsville native, is one of many locals who treasure early memories of walking through the displays with family.
- "Everyone has so many different experiences with Galaxy, and so many interpretations of how they see Galaxy," he said.
State of play: This year, the team wanted to hit on that tradition, Byrd said, emphasizing zones like Dreamscape, the reimagined icicle forest, which Byrd said is the largest zone ever for Galaxy of Lights.
- Tradition meets innovation, too, at the wire frame display of the Higginbotham house on Horseshoe Trail, where Byrd remembers going as a kid to see the expansive light displays.
The bottom line: "Galaxy of Lights is essentially an extension of Huntsville," Byrd said. "It's a representation of the community that Huntsville has ... and it has grown with Huntsville."