Festival Of Lights Returning To Downtown Riverside In 2021

RIVERSIDE, CA — The famed "Festival of Lights" will go ahead as planned in downtown Riverside during the Christmas season, but it will be another year of limited activity because of ongoing public health concerns, officials confirmed Tuesday.

"A generation of Riversiders has grown up with the Festival of Lights as a much-loved tradition," Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said. "We greatly appreciate our partners at the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa for their years of investment in this tradition, and we eagerly await the return of the switch-on ceremony in 2022. Until then, this season will still provide many of the signature lights and decorations that have come to attract locals and visitors alike."

The Riverside City Council has decided that, like 2020, coronavirus exposure risks remain too high for large gatherings on the downtown Main Street pedestrian mall.

The council will allocate roughly $100,000 for this year's six-week event, which begins the day after Thanksgiving, according to city spokesman Phil Pitchford. Prior to 2020, anywhere from $350,000 to $825,000 was earmarked for festival activities, which netted sizable revenue to the city and vendors.

The switch-on ceremony had, until 2020, been the seminal curtain-raiser for the fest and typically attracted upwards of 75,000 people to the area fronting the Mission Inn. However, because of COVID-19, that celebration was scotched by officials last year, and this year, Mission Inn staff decided it was still too risky.

"We are hopeful that the 30th anniversary next year will be a time when we can return to the festival as we knew it prior to COVID-19," Councilwoman Gaby Plascencia said.

Mission Inn Hotel & Spa owner Duane Roberts began the Festival of Lights in 1992.
The nightly fest features the century-old inn bathed in multi-colored hues, with hundreds of animated characters, including elves, toy soldiers, nutcrackers and angels, visible on banisters, balconies and ledges.

Towering Christmas trees traditionally line the way outside and into the hotel, where visitors also encounter a mistletoe measuring 12-by-8 feet.

"The festival will continue to feature the traditional lights and decorations at the Mission Inn, as well as city-sponsored holiday decor in the surrounding areas, including holiday-themed selfie stations, holiday trees, large ornaments, a sleigh, bows and garland on lights and bridges," according to a city statement. "However ... many traditional features, including live entertainment, attractions, food vendors and horse-drawn carriages, had to be canceled."

The Dickens Carolers, carnival rides, an ice skating rink, children's bounce houses and other activities will not be available.