Sascha Wil­son

Lit up with over a mil­lion bulbs, Dri­vin Home for Christ­mas, a dri­ve-through light show, was of­fi­cial­ly opened on Sun­day at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um in Tarou­ba.

De­signed specif­i­cal­ly to cre­ate a safe en­vi­ron­ment for fam­i­lies dur­ing the Christ­mas hol­i­days, this is the sec­ond time Jinx En­ter­tain­ment Ltd is host­ing the event.

Last year, it was held at the San Fer­nan­do Hill, but due to the “in­sane” traf­fic con­ges­tion, the or­gan­is­ers have moved the show to the sta­di­um where they be­lieve there would be a smoother traf­fic flow.

Di­rec­tor Sean Lyons ex­plained that they ini­tial­ly want­ed to have a walk-through vil­lage with ven­dors and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, but they de­cid­ed to con­vert it in­to a dri­ve-through due to the pan­dem­ic.

He said, “We start­ed this show as a way to bring a COVID safe en­vi­ron­ment while still hav­ing an event be­cause last year when COVID was very ram­pant, well it is again this year, there was noth­ing go­ing on. There were no events go­ing on. Peo­ple were kind of bro­ken, spir­its were bro­ken. We just want­ed to lift their mood, giv­en peo­ple some­thing to do for the hol­i­days with their fam­i­lies. Just bring Christ­mas cheer, spread Christ­mas cheer and joy.”

Giv­ing an idea of what pa­trons could ex­pect on the jour­ney of spec­tac­u­lar lights, he said they would pass through the gift box-shaped en­trance on­to the Christ­mas tree vil­lage which is lined with 150 tress­es with mul­ti-coloured bulbs.

Pa­trons would then en­ter Can­dy Cane Lane, then San­ta’s Work­shop with a creche, rein­deers, San­ta, and a mul­ti-coloured tun­nel.

They al­so in­clud­ed a Tri­ni Christ­mas theme sec­tion with red and white lights, the na­tion­al flag and live en­ter­tain­ment.

The fi­nal sec­tion is Win­ter Won­der­land with blue and white lights and the floor is cov­ered in white to rep­re­sent snow.

Ex­plain­ing they have paired with an Act of Kind­ness, an or­phan­age, Lyons said, “On some nights we are ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to have a toy dri­ve so we are go­ing to let pa­trons bring any brand new toy, of any val­ue, and once you bring that you come in­side for $20 flat.”

Not­ing that they are al­so af­fil­i­at­ed with Jef­frey & Taco and An­i­mal Alive, he said 20 per cent of the pro­ceeds would go to­wards the char­i­ties while the re­main­der would be used to fund the event.

“We just hope every­one has a great time. We hope every­one can en­joy the Christ­mas spir­it. We know that we are kind of at a low point with COVID be­ing so ram­pant right now. We know there are not many COVID safe events out there. We know times are pret­ty hard at the mo­ment. So we just hope that peo­ple come out with their fam­i­lies, re­main in their ve­hi­cles, main­tain a COVID safe en­vi­ron­ment and just en­joy them­selves,” Lyons said.

The en­trance fee is based on the size of the ve­hi­cles, five-seater ve­hi­cles are $60, sev­en-seater ve­hi­cles are $80 while the fee for max­is, any size, is $120.