(Enchant Christmas at the Las Vegas Ballpark has opened for holidays. Above photo courtesy of Enchant Christmas)
By Debbie Hall, Exhibit City News
Enchant Christmas at Las Vegas Ballpark® has been transformed into the World’s Largest Christmas Light Maze through Dec. 29. Set against the backdrop of an original story through 80,000 square feet of breathtaking light sculptures, attendees search for the missing pieces of the tale to save Christmas.
Those in the expo and convention industry understand the complexity of creating, designing, implementing, activating and tearing down such a big undertaking. Exhibit City News spoke with Las Vegas Production Manager Tim Molyneux while touring behind the scenes of Enchant Christmas.
It begins with Enchant Corporate, which operates as a corporation and includes a president, CEO, and vice presidents of creative, finance, marketing, design, and other areas. Managing the productions of the three cities (Las Vegas, Seattle and San Jose, California) is full-time, using seasonal employees for the actual event. Corporate designs each venue, typically in ballparks, since the parks are not used during winter. Corporate comes up with site maps designed as a story.
“I work directly with Devin Boquist, head of production. He’s a senior production leader of Enchant Corporate over all the cities and he’s brilliant,” adds Molyneux.
This year, the theme for the maze in Las Vegas is Reindeer Games. Every year, a different vision is rotated to create a unique experience for guests annually.
“We convert the entire space. It takes about 100 different employees including artisans, riggers, electricians, stagehands, site operators, forklift drivers, literally an army of people put this together. There’s a head of carpentry, a head of electrical, a site manager, a logistics type person, a quartermaster that handles the tools and the equipment, a head of decor and a head of signage. My right-hand person, Dre Conway, has worked at this event for three years and is fantastic.”
Some of the workers are from Utah and California, but Molyneux estimates 60 to 70 percent are from Las Vegas. Most are full-time event workers, working various events throughout the year.
“I started in late July hiring the crews, securing the equipment that we need and all the logistics,” explains Molyneux. “We started the work in October and have about 30 days to complete all the conversions.”
Site maps have all the assets. Molyneux and his team conduct the land survey, determining all the electrical needs in the park and the cable needs for Wi-Fi. Then, based on the survey, the field is trenched. They lay the cable, and then 100,000 square feet of Teflon-like flooring covering the whole park.
Alex Shifton, head of electrics, has also worked at the event for three years. They also partner with CES Power with a representative who stays for the whole installation and production run.
The ballpark has its team of engineers and electricians as a coordinated effort between all three, so power and wattage are transferred into the space safely.
“It’s about 130,000 square feet for all the decor spaces. We survey the land again with satellite surveying to get within a fraction of an inch of where every asset goes. We put stickers down all over the park of where everything’s supposed to be built,” says Molyneux. “Most of our assets are in warehouses across the country, mainly Texas and Florida, and are trucked here. We need to coordinate the logistics of getting the assets in the warehouse reused and fixed there. Once the trucks arrive, we must create a boneyard across the street in the parking lot.”
The other big project is the skating rink, which IRE (Downtown Summerlin Mall), is installing. This includes the chillers and coordinating with CES for electric needs. The lake is designed by Enchant Corporate.
Enchant Christmas contracts with the Las Vegas Ballpark to handle security, housekeeping and cleaning, and lost and found.
Molyneux and his teams build a village shopping area, with local vendors also creating unique gifts, crafts, and souvenirs, as well as the Enchant shop for merch. Local restaurants create seasonal food and drink specialties for the park. Molyneux also hires entertainers on the stages, carolers, specialty acts, adage teams, contortionists, and DJs.
When asked how many Santas are hired, Molyneux smiled and said, “There’s only one Santa, and he is magically always here.”
Tear down is about a two-week process with repair and then shipping back to the warehouses. Next year, Enchant Las Vegas will produce a new holiday experience.
Enchant Christmas features an ice-skating trail (the largest one to date), a 100-foot center tree, Santa and Mrs. Claus, and a Ferris Wheel. The attraction is ADA-compliant, and pets are welcome. Enchant Christmas is expected to have an economic impact of over $30 million on the Las Vegas area, hiring over 200 seasonal workers and supporting over 40 local businesses. For more info, visit enchantchristmas.com/city/las-vegas-nv-ballpark.
