The Pacific Wheel displays lights in red, white, and blue over the Labor Day Weekend.

Labor Day is celebrated in the United States on the first Monday every September to recognize the work and contributions of American workers. For many, it is an extra long weekend to enjoy the end of summer. Oregon was the first state to make Labor Day an official holiday in 1887. Thirty more states recognized Labor Day before being adopted nationwide in 1894.

Pacific Park will celebrate Labor Day and the end of summer with a special red, white, and blue light program on the Ferris wheel all weekend long, Friday – Monday night, September 4th – 7th. The Ferris wheel lights can be seen from dusk until 11:30 PM each evening. Enjoy watching the light program from the comfort of your own home on our live-streaming web cams at www.pacpark.com/live.

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 @twocrazytraveldudes.