When Dana Doody says there is an all-new holiday light show coming to the Jacksonville Arboretum & Botanical Gardens this year, she means it.
The 120-acre arboretum, located off Monument Road near I-295, has been the site for Dazzling Nights Jacksonville for the last three years, drawing better than 25,000 people each year to wander paths strung with holiday light displays.
They’ll do it again this year, but under their own control. Dazzling Nights was run by an Orlando firm, which split the profits with the arboretum. For 2024, the arboretum has purchased its own equipment and hired a designer to create Glowing Gardens, a whole new holiday display. They also consulted with the American Public Gardens Association to learn what other large public light shows are doing…