When the table has been cleared and the football game turned off, locals know what comes next in a quintessentially KC Thanksgiving.
The Plaza Lighting Ceremony has kicked off the holiday season here for nearly 100 years — attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to watch ~300,000 brightly-colored bulbs illuminate the city with the flip of a switch.
Excerpts from the early years: 1950s. | Photos via Missouri Valley Special Collections
The Ghost of Plaza Past
Let there be light... or so its origin story goes.
In 1925, Charles “Pete” Pitrat, a Nichols Company maintenance supervisor, innocently hung a single strand of lights on the Mill Creek Building — a move that snowballed into a full fledged ceremony by 1930. With the country reeling into the Great Depression, the celebration became a beacon of community knitting Kansas Citians closer year after year.
Fast forward 94 years to now, where both bulb count and attendance have soared to the hundreds of thousands, overstuffed citizens can opt to watch the telecast, and celebrities from Walter Cronkite to Oleta Adams have been invited to flip the switch. Nothing (besides the Oil Shock of ’73 and the COVID-19 pandemic) have kept Kansas Citians from this time honored tradition since.
While the bulb count has exploded, its general layout hasn’t changed much in ~100 years. | Photo by Mike Day
This year’s celebration
Whether it’s already a family tradition or your first time attending IRL, here are some need-to-know details for a magical evening:
When: Thursday, Nov. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m.
Where: Intersection of Nichols Road and Pennsylvania Avenue
Parking: While parking is always free, spots fill up quickly — come ready to walk if you don’t arrive a few hours early.
Bundle up to brace the near-freezing temps and get ready to enjoy performances by DJ Kirby, Quixotic, and Monica’s School of Dance before Kansas City Chiefs Chairman + CEO Clark Hunt and his wife Tavia flip the switch at ~7 p.m.
