The jack-o’-lanterns are all wired with LED lights, requiring nearly five miles of electrical cords to illuminate them all and a week’s worth of work to run. Putting it all together is no small feat. Past themes have focused on the alphabet, the 50 states, and “The People’s Choice.” This year’s is “American Treasures,” featuring commemorative stamp art, humanitarian heroes, endangered species and cultural icons. And because each show is centered around a specific theme, with multiple “skits,” or motifs, the pumpkins along with their accompanying music must be coordinated well in advance. The Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular event at the Roger Williams Park Zoo adopts a theme each year, this one being “American Treasures,” featuring commemorative stamp art, heroes, endangered species and cultural icons.ĭrawing more than 125,000 visitors annually, the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular requires months of planning, often beginning before the current season ends. “It’s all year, every day, spent thinking about pumpkins,” said Kimberly Reckner. With each passing year its popularity grew until it eventually ended up at the zoo, where it’s been hosted, minus a five-year break from 2004-09, since 2001.įor Reckner, daughter Kimberly, and son Travis, who runs a Spectacular in Louisville, Ky., it’s become much more than just a jack-o’-lantern display, it’s their lives. It was so successful that after a couple of years the event was moved to a nearby park in order to accommodate the increasing crowds. With the help of family and friends, he put on his first jack-o’-lantern display in 1988 at the local elementary school. Months later Reckner was still talking about it and decided to create his own display in his home town of Oxford, Mass. “So we went up there, it was a beautiful landscape and it made an impression on me, in addition to the 500 jack-o’-lanterns that were on the mountain.” “I had read about a mountainside display in northern Vermont when my kids were young,” explained founder John Reckner.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |