Every day, parks fill with visitors for hiking, boating, strolling, swimming, fishing and picnicking until sundown. But come dusk, many parks offer nighttime activities that draw guests back. Creative offerings range from midnight kayak paddles to family campout nights, campfire storytelling, hayrides, owl prowls, and even a nocturnal festival of 5,000 illuminated jack-o’-lanterns, held each October in Louisville, Kentucky’s Iroquois Park.
Among the most popular evening events for park and recreation departments are outdoor concerts and film screenings. To take this popular concept up a notch, Clarksville Parks and Recreation in Clarksville, Tennessee, creates themed activities around the evening’s flick. “For instance, prior to ‘Pretty in Pink’ we had ‘80s Zumba and a giant Polaroid photo booth,” says Event Planning Specialist Jenna Tyler. “We’ve tried to make our Movies in the Park events go above and beyond.”
Parks also find ways use their spaces creatively. Come nightfall in Columbus, Ohio, the 15,000-square-foot, 200-foot-long Scioto Mile Fountain cools off visitors as it provides a light show. Kids splash and play in 75-foot-high jets of water, 1,079 ground-level spray nozzles lined up in 24 hedgerows, and 1,100 fog nozzles. “It even has the capability to project images [of flames or other ambiance] on walls of fog,” says Karen Wiser, program and festival director for the City of Columbus Recreation and Parks Department. Open until 11 p.m. April through October, the same park offers free nighttime performances such as the BalletMet Columbus.
Families explore nocturnal garden life twice a year on Family Flashlight Night at the San Antonio Botanical Garden in Texas. “We invite residents to come out after sundown to learn about night-blooming plants and birds of the night, like owls,” says Kelly Irvin, public relations manager for the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department. “We also talk about what makes fireflies light up and dissect owl pellets.”
In Los Angeles, the Summer Night Lights program — which draws in youth for food and recreation in 32 city parks — has earned accolades for its success in dramatically reducing gang violence. In mid-August through early September 2013, for instance, the city saw a 73 percent drop in gang-related crimes for all program locations, a 100 percent reduction in homicides, an 85 percent reduction in victims shot, and an 83 percent reduction in aggravated assaults within a one-mile radius of participating parks. Parks are staffed by two police officers, with more police cars roving close by, explains Mark Mariscal, Pacific region superintendent with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.
Created by the City of Los Angeles’ Mayor’s Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development and its foundation, the nighttime programs allow parks to open gymnasiums and facilities for planned evening activities. Following a healthy free dinner, youth and adults engage in free organized sports — basketball, soccer, softball — as well as art classes, Zumba workouts and more.
Other park systems are getting people exercising at night through bike rides and runs. Lenexa, Kansas, held a Moonlight Bike Ride last July, during which bikers started at 10 p.m. and rode through town streets and even a cave system. For extra fun, riders decorated their bikes with lights to compete for prizes.
Further south, for the 1, 2, 3K Glow and Show in Alexander Park in Lawrenceville, Georgia, walkers and runners donned glow-in-the-dark T-shirts, face paint and nail polish for an after-dark 3K fun run/walk and outdoor film. Black light stations welcomed almost 350 glowstick-carrying participants, who illuminated the park trails with glow-in-the-dark gear before settling into a viewing of the movie “Frozen,” explains Nazanin Weck, marketing manager with Gwinnett County Parks and Recreation. In a similar nationwide event, many parks have hosted the Electric Run, a 5K event with plenty of glowing attire and whimsical neon scenery that culminates with a late-night DJ-hosted dance party at the finish line.
On the West Coast, glow-in-the-dark ambiance takes a different twist each spring in Malibu Bluffs Park in Malibu, California, where staff and volunteers hide about 1,500 eggs filled with tiny glow sticks, candy and other glowing prizes for teens bearing glow wands and illuminated rings.
After summer’s heat has passed, fall proves a popular time for pre-Halloween evening events, such as hayrides and bonfires. New Braunfels Parks and Recreation in New Braunfels, Texas, offers autumn after-dark tours of the historic Comal Cemetery — complete with living history portrayals of cemetery “residents” by volunteer actors who dress in period clothing and use historical props to narrate the life stories of the deceased. At the tour’s conclusion, a German choir sings old funeral hymns alongside an authentic horse-drawn funeral wagon and casket.
“This is not a scary event, but rather a history of our town,” says Director of Parks and Recreation Stacey Dicke. “It sells out every year in about two to three weeks.”
For events such as New Braunfels’ cemetery tours, a nighttime setting helps take programs to a new level. Such after-hours opportunities may bring in visitors less likely to come during the day due to work commitments, preference to stay out of daytime heat or other reasons. Whether evening programs occur regularly or feature as one-night occasions, park and recreation departments have found creative — and fun — ways to make cultural-, sport- and nature-oriented activities light up the night.
Carrie Madren is a freelance writer based in northern Virginia.