Everything You Need To Know About The Faneuil Hall Tree Lighting Spectacular
CBS Boston and Faneuil Hall Marketplace Present The Annual Holiday Tree Lighting Spectacular
When: November 22, 2014
Festivities: 12 p.m - 10 p.m.
Tree Lighting Ceremony: 8-9 p.m., live on WBZ-TV
Encore presentation 10-11 p.m. on myTV38
Where: Faneuil Hall Marketplace
1 Faneuil Hall Square
Boston, MA 02109
www.faneuilhallmarketplace.com
Directions: Click HERE for directions, parking and public transportation options
THE FESTIVITIES
The daylong festivities will kick-off at 2 p.m. with the arrival of Santa Claus. Mix 104.1's Gregg Daniels and Fast Freddy will be broadcasting live from 2-6 p.m. There will be more than a dozen singers, dancers and performers on stage throughout the day, along with the best of Faneuil Hall Marketplace's street performers.
THE LIGHTING CEREMONY
The lighting ceremony will air live on WBZ-TV (Channel 4) from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and will be hosted by WBZ-TV's Lisa Hughes and David Wade. The show will be rebroadcast on myTV38 (WSBK-TV) from 10 to 11 p.m.
The hour-long ceremony will feature a reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh. The program will also feature holiday musical performances by the Tanglewood Festival Chorus conducted by Maestro Keith Lockhart, Jilly Martin from Boston Idol, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: The Musical, a performance of The Nutcracker by the Boston Ballet, and the Sugarbabies Band.
When the switch is flipped, more than 30,000 lights and strobes will illuminate on the 90-foot tree, the tallest in the northeast. That's not counting the 350,000 lights that are part of the Blink! lights and music show that will light up all of Faneuil Hall.
Read: 5 Things You Didn't Know About Faneuil Hall
The tree will be lit every night from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. through January 4. the Blink! light show will also run every half hour during that time frame. Santa Claus will be on hand each day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
TOY DRIVE
The Faneuil Hall Tree Lighting Spectacular will also kickoff the New England Patriots annual Holiday Toy Drive. Toy donations will be collected from November 22 through December 14.
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE TREE
- The Faneuil Hall holiday tree is 90 feet tall without the star – 93 feet tall with the star.
- It is the largest holiday tree in New England, even taller than Rockefeller Center's tree (which is normally about 75 feet tall).
- The huge Norwegian spruce is from Saint James on New York's Long Island.
- It arrived by flatbed truck on November 6.
- It takes 10 people to raise the tree, followed by 12 days to set up and decorate with 30,000 lights and 1,000 strobes.
FUN FACTS ABOUT BLINK!
Blink! is a state-of-the-art light and sound show set to the music of the Holiday Pops. The lights dance seamlessly to the music through every inch of Faneuil Hall to create a spectacle not to be missed. The entire six week show will use the same amount of electricity as an average American household uses in a month. It runs every night from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. through January 4.
