Workers from Detroit-based Ashcraft Landscape are busy stringing thousands of lights throughout Campus Martius Park in preparation for the 11th annual Detroit Tree Lighting Ceremony on Friday.
This year’s tree is a 60-foot-tall, 10,000-pound Norway spruce grown in Cadillac. Campus Martius Park President Robert Gregory said Riverdale, N.Y.-based Egan Acres Tree Farm is decorating the tree, which is wrapped in 3 miles of lights.
The ceremony begins at 5 p.m. Friday; the lighting is planned for 7:45 p.m. and the festivities will continue until midnight.
Gregory said downtown Detroit will be illuminated with more than 350,000 lights, including the 19,000 LED lights on the tree itself and those hung along Woodward and Jefferson avenues by The Brickman Group Ltd. LLC, a Rockville, Md.-based landscaping company.
- The Campus Martius ice rink is set to open with skating performances by 1988 and 1994 Russian Olympic figure skating champion Ekaterina Gordeeva, the Detroit Skating Club of Bloomfield Hills, Arctic Figure Skating Club of Canton and Creative Edge Ice Theatre of Waterford.
- Live musical performances will feature 2014 “American Idol” runner-up Jena Irene of Farmington Hills, the Second Ebenezer Mass Choir, Rhythm Society Orchestra with Paul King, Detroit Academy of Arts and SciencesChoir, Michigan Opera Theatre soloist Corey Roberts, Corktown Popes, the Salvation Army Band and Ann Arbor-based singer-songwriter Laith Al-Saadi.
- Attendees will enjoy free hot chocolate at the DTE Energy Foundation tent and free cinnamon rolls in the Ikea warming tent.
- Free tree lighting photos will be printed on-site by FirstMerit Bank.
- Carriage rides on Monroe Street will be available for $10.
- Get your photo taken with Santa in the Compuware Atrium.
- The River 93.9 FM DJ Greg Gnyp will host the River Rink Party from 8:30 p.m. to midnight.
