Illumi, Festival of Lights

I think all of Southern Ontario has heard of this festival. It may be the top promoted event in our province this month. Alex and I had to check it out, and it lived up to the hype.

This is one of the few times on my vlog where I didn't do much of the planning. All I had to do was send the link to Alex and say what nights I was free. He bought the tickets and made the plans. Parking was a breeze, they had lots of attendants to ensure that everyone got a spot. You could purchase when you arrived, but it appeared that almost everyone had bought online, so it was an easy walk through to get our tickets scanned.

The place was packed with people, but it didn't feel overcrowded. I will say, this was the end of November, who knows what December crowds were like. I suppose you could go your own direction when you walk in and go left, but the flow of traffic leads you right, through all the different lands. It was a clear mix of holiday festivals from around the world which was lovely. There then also was a weird alien/candy part that made you feel like you were on acid, but I suppose to some that's a holiday too. My personal favourites were anything with lit up trees, they were all so beautifully done. I also enjoyed the field of red spiders, but I'm a strange person.

I loved their attention to detail that every area had music that went perfectly with it We could rarely hear what was happening in the next spot. It also all went perfectly with the giant tree that could be seen from every angle of the grounds. It was strange being directly next to Canada's largest airport. The planes seemed so close while they flew overhead. Actually, the Starbucks barista who gave us our coffee pre-lights told us he had flown over it just a few days prior and it looked really cool.

Overall, this was my first of SIX holiday festivals and it was a great one to kick it off. Enjoy the full video here, apologies that I'm such a grinch I chose creepy music for most of the video. What can I say, Carol of the Bells is the holiday song to rule them all!