Night Lights
Night Lights
Griffis Sculpture Park blends creative lighting with nature
Photos / Griffis Sculpture Park
NIGHT LIGHTS at Griffis Sculpture Park continues to be an annual autumn tradition in Western New York since 2013. The outdoor light experience will return for 15 select nights from mid-September to mid-October, beginning on Friday, September 20th.
Located just outside of Ellicottville, NIGHT LIGHTS blends creative lighting, sculpture, sound, and nature to deliver an unforgettable outdoor experience at one of the United States’ largest sculpture parks. At NIGHT LIGHTS, guests are able to venture on an unguided walk through a portion of the Mill Valley Road site of the sculpture park, where the trails and sculptures will interact with creative lighting – creating a truly unique experience.
To get an inside look at the workings of NIGHT LIGHTS, we asked creator Doug Sitler numerical questions about 12 years of lighting up the sculpture park.
eNOW: So, 12 years of NIGHT LIGHTS!
SITLER: We have been lighting up Griffis Sculpture Park for 12 consecutive autumns. It has been wildly successful and has brought a lot of new faces, attention and fundraising to the park. During our first year in 2013, we didn’t set up the lights until the last week of October. We kept it open into the middle of November, where it actually snowed a few nights.
eNOW: How many people have attended a NIGHT LIGHTS event at Griffis Sculpture Park?
SITLER: In the dozen years of installing NIGHT LIGHTS, we have attracted 35,000 paid guests to the park. The event has raised over $150,000 for the park
eNOW: What does it take to light up a part of the sculpture park?
SITLER: To pull off NIGHT LIGHTS, it requires over 1.5 miles of power lines and cords, to provide electric to roughly 150 lights. All our lights are LED. There is a crew of three or four people that take about three weeks to set it all up
eNOW: Do some nights sell out of tickets?
SITLER: One of the main reason why we went to internet ticketing is so that we have a good handle on how many people are going to show up on any particular evening. We limit each night to 450 tickets sold. Guests can still purchase tickets at the gate too. However, we do sell out a few times a year, so purchasing the tickets in advance is the safe bet.
eNOW: Speaking of tickets, how much do they cost?
SITLER: Tickets are $14 adults and $11 for kids. They can be purchased online at Eventbrite.
eNOW: Anything new added to NIGHT LIGHTS this year?
SITLER: We are featuring local artists and performers each evening of NIGHT LIGHTS. Over the course of five weeks, we will have hired 30 artists from our community. The hiring of the artists was made possible through a grant by the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation. We have also added some new lighting schemes on the trail.