CFC Properties workers started to prepare the Canopy of Lights 2014 in the middle of September.
Canopy of Lights is a tradition in Bloomington that was incepted almost three decades ago. CFC Properties restarted it in 1987, Jim Murphy, president of CFC Properties, said. It gives people a reason, he added, to come to Bloomington and promotes the downtown area.
“This events bring thousands of people downtown, and it’s fun,” Murphy said. “It’s a fun place to go. It’s fun to do.”
This year, the Canopy of Lights lighting ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. Nov. 28, lasting between 30 to 45 minutes.
Mark Allen, operations director at CFC Properties, is directly managing the Canopy of Lights. He said his team is already done with half of the preparation work.
“We are running a little bit ahead of schedule right now, I think,” Allen said.
Workers have worked on replacing the lights and testing those lights since the middle of September to make sure the ceremony will start on time this year.
”Every three years, we take all the lights off and put all new lights on,” Murphy said. “This year, we just simply repaired what was in place, and we have to test them all to make sure they still work.”
Murphy said workers usually start preparing the lights months before.
“It varies depending on the condition of the trees,” he said. “It usually takes at least two months. Sometimes it could take three months because it’s very tedious, time-consuming work.“
CFC Properties will use 272,000 lights to decorate the trees and the buildings this year. Those lights will be set around the central square.
“We close down Kirkwood between Rogers and College streets, and there’s a stage, and that’s where everyone will gather,” ?Murphy said.
Workers take off the lights every three years and re-decorate the trees. They wrap every branch with lights and the top of buildings, Murphy said. This is different than the first Canopy of Lights.
“We wrapped the trees like a lot of people do, just around the whole tree,” Murphy said. “Steve Ferguson, who’s one of our executives at Cook, had gone to Chicago, and he saw downtown Chicago, where they wrapped every branch. So at about the third or fourth year, we decided to wrap every branch. That’s when we had the ‘wow’ factor.”
Those in charge of the ceremony decided to bring more activities to the 28th Canopy of Lights this year to make the ceremony more interesting and attract more people.
“We will have a celebration, we will have community leaders that will talk,” Murphy said. “Santa Claus will come, and we’ll have a countdown and turn the lights on. All the lights will turn on at the same time.”
Allen said they hope to bring a feeling of being back home to everyone who comes downtown this year.
“It’s a tradition now,” Allen said. “And everyone looks forward to it.”
