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Santa Monica Pier’s Pacific Wheel Lights Up for St. Patrick’s Day

Published on March 11, 2020

Pacific Park To Display 90-Foot Tall Shimmering Shamrock On Its Ferris Wheel For St. Patrick’s Day

 

The water surrounding the Santa Monica Pier will be illuminated by bright green lights this St. Patrick’s Day weekend, as Pacific Park’s iconic Pacific Wheel spins lucky shamrocks and clovers with its dazzling 174K LED lights. The Wheel will also display fun icons in green and yellow that is sure to give viewers a delightful site. St. Patrick’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural celebration held on March 17th, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland.

 

This special lighting event will begin on Friday, March 13th and run through Tuesday, March 17th. The lights can be seen from dusk until 11:30 PM each evening. If you are unable to make it out to the Santa Monica Pier this week, you can always view the Wheel’s light programs on our live-streaming web cams.

 

Pacific Park regularly programs the Ferris wheel to display seasonal programing and themed light designs for holidays and special occasions. The Pacific Wheel’s state-of-the-art lighting package was installed in 2016 and can display over 1.6 million different colors and animate patterns and icons in 24 frames per second. The energy efficient LEDs on the face of the Ferris wheel are powered by solar arrays inside Pacific Park. The light programs are curated and designed by Pacific Park staff. Each design is manually animated; some designs can take hours of programming. The aim is to provide fun, high-energy, and sometimes whimsical designs to entertain guests on the Santa Monica Pier and surrounding beaches.

 

The Ferris wheel’s light programs can be seen nightly lighting the waters around the Santa Monica Pier and are regularly featured in news broadcasts across the country. Pacific Park accepts special lighting requests from the public as part of a sponsorship arrangement with the Park. Because of the large volume of these requests, not all submissions can be met, and the Park no longer offers pro bono lighting requests. To learn more about these and other opportunities to partner with Pacific Park, please visit www.pacpark.com/sponsorships.

Feature image courtesy of @muru_vellachamy.