San Antonio is a big city, and within the hundreds of streets there are many holiday festivals and events that happen yearly, but one, in particular, swept me off my feet. The Botanical Gardens is hosting a lightscape festival, in which they light up the many acres of land that the gardens stretch across while bringing in holiday snacks, music, and decorations such as homemade glass lights. The lightscape event will be happening from November 19th, until January 2nd and hosts the perfect spot to take your loved ones over the holidays to have a wonderful time. This event offers many different experiences such as a street fair to explore before and after your gardens tour, an enthralling light show that is sure to keep your family entertained, as well as an unforgettable experience!

To continue, in order to attend the lightscape you have to purchase a ticket through their website https://www.sabot.org/lightscape/ and will be given the option of VIP tickets which include parking at the botanical gardens or regular tickets that have you park at the University Of Incarnate Word where you will ride a provided shuttle bus to the gardens and back. Though many think VIP may be the way to go, the regular parking has a hidden gem that you only see when you get there, a beautifully lit street fair. This street fair not only gives those waiting for their shuttle to the gardens something to do, but it also allows for everyone to have an enjoyable experience. At the street fair there are booths of small businesses and even some who are raising money for foundations to help those in need during the holidays, and some booths are food filled and surely will catch any passerbys attention with the mixture of yummy smells. Once your time is nearing you can cross the street from the fair and get in line for the shuttle, and though the lines may seem long there are about 4 shuttle busses that come every fifteen minutes which allows for lines to move extremely fast. The shuttle will then take you to the very anticipated gardens lightscape event.

Once you reach the gardens a truly magical feeling is sure to sweep over you and your entire family as you walk through the front entrance that begins it all and as you go through the line to have your ticket checked the enchantment sinks in the closer you get to the start. Then the real fun begins, instantly greeted by music and lights, the journey leads you on a guided tour of the gardens with all of the sparkling and dazzling lights. The further away from the start you walk, the brighter and bigger the light show becomes, you start off walking through the front and the lightshow is pretty nice but once you reach the midpoint is really when the botanical gardens stepped it up a notch! Whether it be light up metal decor, the field of light up bluebells, or even the grand finale field covered in lights that correspond to the songs they play, the gardens really went all out to provide everyone with an enjoyable experience that they won’t forget. There are many light shows throughout San Antonio, but the Botanical gardens surely put in hours of effort into creating such an enjoyable time, which was a major factor of how unforgettable overall the lightscape festival was. Not only did they perfectly enact this, but they took time to make so many different types of decor that will appeal to all audiences such as the glass art lights, metal light up phoenix’s, different photo opportunities throughout the entire event, and even a perfectly picked Christmas themed music track to play corresponding to their lights. The gardens also made sure to place food stops all throughout the path in order to make sure that visitors had the best and full experiences for fair and reasonable prices. This overall leads to an enjoyable, heartwarming time for everyone and is a wonderful way to bring family and friends together and close during the holiday season.

After all has been said and done the Botanical Garden Lightscape event has surely proved to be a magnificent way to spend time during

thebreak if you are looking for fun things to go out and explore. It was put together in a way that has never been seen at the botanical gardens before and brought a smile to everyone who was there. When going you not only get to take a detour to a Christmas street fest, but also see a wonderfully made light show that is beyond jaw dropping and offers a fun event for families alike!