Bicentennial Park In Grand Blanc Will Not Host A Drive-Thru Christmas Light Show This Year
Christmas light drive-thru events were all the rage during the pandemic in 2020, but there will not be one in Grand Blanc this year.
I'm sure we all remember the mad scramble to see as many Christmas light displays as humanly possible last year. Being stuck inside during the pandemic had everyone clamoring to get out and do something . . . ANYTHING! With most of the traditional holiday events being cancelled, or held virtually, this opened up the door for drive thru holiday events.
Behold! The drive thru Christmas light display events were born!
Look, before we go any further I need to say that I'm not bagging on these events at all. My family went to pretty much every one that was within driving distance, and most of them were worth the drive. The one difference is that we did our light tour extremely early in the season, which proved to be very advantageous.
The later in the holiday season you waited, the longer the lines to get in and out of these displays got. I remember seeing traffic backed up for MILES on 75 as people waited to drive through the display at DTE.
Grand Blanc Parks & Rec put together a really good drive thru display at Bicentennial Park last year. I'm not sure if they had already planned on doing it, or if it was an idea born out of the demand for safe holiday things to do. Either way, it started off great, but like every other light event, it got busy. . . really busy.
I remember seeing the posts on Facebook of people losing their minds because of the traffic on Grand Blanc Rd during the events. There were people stuck in their own driveways as other cars were parked on the road, refusing to let people in line. It was a classic case of a great event gone wrong because it was too popular (every event planner knows what I'm talking about).
There really was not much that any of the organizers could do, other than try to limit the number of people that came to the display. The streets around Bicentennial Park just aren't built for massive amounts of traffic. So instead of repeating the event this year, the organizers have decided to cancel the event. The problem is that some people are creating fake Facebook events saying that it's still on. GB Parks & Rec eventually had to put a message out confirming that it would not be happening this year.
If you see any of these fake events, feel free to spread the word that this is not happening this year.
I would expect that many of these drive thru events get cancelled this year all around the area. With pandemic restrictions much looser than they were last season, more people will go back to the more traditional holiday events . . . you know, where you are allowed to get out of the car.
Take a minute and let us know what holiday events you plan on checking out this year.
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