The city of Riverside kicked off the holiday season last night with a switch-on ceremony for the Mission Inn Hotel and Spa’s annual Festival of Lights.
“Oh my God, they were so beautiful,” Olga Leon, a longtime Riverside resident, said minutes after the hotel illuminated downtown Riverside’s night sky for the first time this year.
Leon was just one of thousands of people who filled Mission Inn Avenue November 22 to celebrate the start of the 33rd annual Festival of Lights. More than 10 million decorative lights lit up the night as fireworks exploded into the air behind the hotel, signaling the start of the two-month long festival.
The hotel’s team had been working since September to prepare for the night’s ceremony, according to Patrick Gates, the hotel’s general manager, who added that the crew was focused on setting up the finishing touches, like a 10-foot-tall gingerbread house and more than 100 Christmas trees, over the past few weeks.
Stay up to date with the latest from The Record. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter today!
“It brings everybody together in this great time [of] holiday cheer,” Gates said. “It just always feels like Christmas around here.”
It’s also the second time the festival has opened the weekend before Thanksgiving, Gates said, as the team wanted to give visitors more time to enjoy the annual tradition.
The celebration was also held just weeks after the death of Duane Roberts, the hotel’s owner and founder of the festival, at 89 years old. This year’s festival was being held in honor of Roberts, according to Gates, with the letters D and R installed on the hotel’s center tower in memory of him.
Before the ceremony kicked off, local representatives — who were also friends with Roberts — stood atop a stage in the center of Orange Street and Mission Inn Avenue and spoke about his legacy.
District Court Judge David Bristow, former general counsel and friend of the Roberts family, retold the history of the Mission Inn and how the Roberts family worked to grow the event year after year. He also said it was the first time in the festival’s history that no members of Roberts’ family, including his wife Kelly, attended the ceremony.
“Kelly intends to honor the legacy and the life work of Duane Roberts through her stewardship and ownership of The Mission Inn Hotel and Spa and through the continuance of the Festival of Lights,” he said. “She is adamant that she will be here next year to flip the switch and to say thank you to all of you for your support.”
The Riverside Record is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news outlet providing Riverside County with high-quality journalism free of charge. We’re able to do this because of the generous donations of supporters like you!