Shelbyville Festival of Lights reopens on Friday

SHELBYVILLE, Ill. (WAND) —500 light displays—hundreds of hours—and thousands of dollars.

"Now we take a long time to put ours up. A lot of ours are big. Some of them take eight to 10 people just to life them. Some takes a bucket truck," said Bill Bly, the Lights Coordinator for the event.

But now, it's finally time for the grand reopening of the Shelbyville Festival of Lights.

The event takes place at Forest Park, off of 9th Street in Shelbyville.

"And so it's also great-we have free carriage rides to the park so people can go to the park in the carriage instead of driving a car. And that's donations only too. So we got free music, free cookies, Santa, free carriage rides, and get to see decorative trees in our Chautauqua building."

Bill also says that he, alongside volunteers, have been working since September to make this year's event spectacular.

One way to achieve this, is by taking care of all the little details-such as repairing old displays and creating news ones by hand.

"And we're really excited this year because we've upgraded our led to a lot brighter LEDs. So this way, we can make our displays a whole lot brighter than we have in the past."

While this event is extravagant—its also expensive.

But luckily—donations are accepted at the booth at the end of the lights tour.

This way--the community can ensure that all these upgrade can happen—and make this year's festival brighter than ever.

Even though there are so many displays already up, Bill says that there are a few more light displays that they would love to get up before opening day. If you're interested in volunteering, click here.