Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024 | 2 a.m.
What started as a small wall of string lights in their parents’ backyard and a dream between two Canadian teenagers has now become the largest Christmas light maze in the world.
Enchant has made a home at Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin since 2021.
Kevin Johnston, who founded Enchant in Vancouver about eight years ago, calls the light maze the biggest in the world. It brings in more than 1 million guests a year in three markets — San Jose, Calif., Seattle and Las Vegas, he said.
“I think we’re having an awesome time here in Vegas, and it’s been fun to actually create, like, a community tradition here,” Johnston said. “We’ve been four years at the Las Vegas Ballpark, and we’re already working on (maze) No. 5 behind the scenes and debuting that next year.”
The Sun sat down with Johnston to discuss the year’s Enchant experience.
What made you want to bring Enchant to Las Vegas?
Las Vegas has a big reputation for the Strip, but it’s also a huge (region) with over 2 million people, and so it just checked a lot of boxes of having great weather, and the ballpark itself is just a really beautiful facility with a great operations team. We were super excited to bring Enchant here the first year, and we had over 260,000 people come, and it’s just been a really warm response from the city, and a lot of great feedback. Now that we’ve been here for four years, I’m constantly running into people who say that it’s a tradition for them, and they want to come every year. They just love it, so it just feels like a great relationship.
What have you and your team done behind the scenes to create these unique experiences each year and get people coming back?
Everything that you see in the shows we’re designing and manufacturing from scratch. So, Enchant employs a very diverse creative and technical team; everything from concept artists to industrial designers, structural and electrical engineers and an entire manufacturing team.
Every year we bring in a 100-foot tree, and the one that we have there this year has got a quarter-million lights on it, 80,000 pounds of concrete ballast, so cool engineering feats to go behind the scenes.
We started off with “The Great Search,” which is our very first story; then we brought the “Mischievous Elf,” which is a toy-themed story; then we have “Santa’s Magic Timepiece” that was here last year; and this year it’s “Reindeer Games,” which is a pretty cute little story of the animals around Enchant stealing the magic bells from the reindeer, and now we have to go find all the bells so that the reindeer can still fly and help Enchant out.
It sounds like these are all original stories that you’re creating specifically for these mazes, so where are you getting that sort of inspiration for the stories each year?
It was actually my wife and I who wrote the first few stories, and now the team has grown. We’ve got a bunch of amazing, creative people on the team, so there’s been contributions from a few different people to come up with additional storylines. The vision was to always have five unique stories, and so No. 5will be debuted next year. We’re excited to kind of come full circle here with five shows in a row, five years.
You could’ve just displayed a bunch of lights in a baseball park and let people go look at them, but what was it about the maze and storyline aspect that really drew you to it?
I think it goes from it being kind of like, instead of you’re just the spectator, you really get to be part of the adventure and have a mission that gets so fun watching — doesn’t matter if you’re a little kid or a kid at heart. I’ve seen adults really get into having to go find all the different items. So, it’s turned into just a really fun way to kind of let loose, and you’re enjoying life, but you also have something tactical to do.
Over the years, we try to make little improvements to the experience, but I think we found our sweet spot with where it’s at now. This year, we got a really cool partnership with Lindt Chocolates, and so if you’re successful in saving Christmas and finding all the bells, you get a very delicious chocolate at the end.
You’ve found a home within these baseball stadiums across the country. How did you develop that sort of relationship with these franchises and their stadiums?
We rented a parking lot from the Texas Rangers back in 2017, and then that was sort of our first introduction to (Major League Baseball). It was after the 2017 season, we got a phone call from the Seattle Mariners, who had heard about us, and they said, “Hey, we don’t have a parking lot, but we’ve got a stadium. Would you consider coming inside the stadium?”
So, in 2018, we took them up on that and we did two shows inside MLB parks, and that was kind of the foray into the MLB world. As the company’s been growing since then, we got connected into the Triple-A network of stadiums, and that’s how we ended up in Vegas in 2021.
Could you walk me through — without any spoilers — what one might expect from the maze and what experiences you’ve heard from guests that have gotten to visit?
When you arrive at the ballpark, the first thing you really get to see as you walk inside is this big reveal of the maze and all the lights. That’s really one of my favorite moments is just to watch people kind of see the maze for the first time, and their eyes just light up, and everybody wants to take a photo there, and it’s just a really fun, exciting moment.
You really start walking through the village at first, and so you’ve got everything — you can buy your dinner there; there’s tons of really cool food options, tons of dessert options, and drinks for all ages.
And then, you’re walking through the village, so you’re seeing various vendors that we have there (to) buy your Christmas gifts for your family. Santa is obviously in the village, which we’ve created a really beautiful photo opportunity and got a great photo team there for family photos. Then, we’ve also got a kids play area in the village, so you can do story readings with Mrs. Claus and there’s a bunch of games there and stuff for the little kids.
When you get through the village and you get down onto the field, that’s where we have the big ice skating experience, where it’s an actual trail so you can kind of skate through some of the lights and it’s a super fun time.
This is a lot of work, and it makes Las Vegas Ballpark look much different than when you visit for an Aviators game. What does the setup look like for your team? When do you get to start setting up, and how long does it take?
It’s a three-week installation with about 50 crew members and roughly 50 trailers of equipment. So, it’s a super big installation, and we usually start around Nov. 1. This year, we opened up Nov. 22.
How much is it costing your team each year to be able to bring Enchant to the ballpark and really make it a unique experience?
I mean, it’s a multimillion-dollar production, and to do things the biggest and the best is not inexpensive. We do put a lot of investment into these shows, but I think we’re producing something that you can’t see anywhere else. It’s unique and when people respond to it and love it, it makes it all worth it.
How many guests are you seeing per year or per weekend in Las Vegas?
We’re seeing over 200,000 guests a year, and so we’ll see. It could be, like, 25,000 people over a weekend — Friday, Saturday, Sunday — and tons of excitement and great energy.
Do you have any favorite memories or any experiences with some of the guests that have really stuck with you?
Just the other night, I was walking in the maze and there was a young couple who had their first child, so it was his first Christmas. He was really climbing right into one of the trees in the maze, and they were taking photos with him. I said hello, and they said they were having an amazing night and the baby was super happy, loving what he was seeing, and they said it was a super special first Christmas for them.
It’s just fun to be able to create an atmosphere for people to have those memories. I’ve talked to other families who come back year over year. We actually had one couple who got engaged a few years ago and then they were back with their first born, so that’s kind of (some) fun lifestyle moments for them (that) they get to come back and chat and get those annual photos as their life progresses.
How does it feel for you to know that you’ve been able to create this sort of experience, not just for tourists like is common in Las Vegas, but for locals as well?
It’s super rewarding to have this be what we get to work on year-round and be our career. It’s super, super special for us.
Even when I did get started, I didn’t have any kids, and now I’ve got a 4- and a 6-year-old, and they literally want to go every single night and cry if they don’t go and love it when they do go. So, it’s cool to have a — I don’t want to call it a job or whatever — but that your kids want to go to every night and get excited about it. It’s special. It’s not lost on me how unique this is, and just a very happy business, like, our job is putting smiles on people’s faces and it’s very rewarding.
Is there anything in this year’s maze or any aspect of Enchant that you really want to highlight?
This year’s maze is going to be in a new city next year, so it’s really your only chance to see “Reindeer Games,” and it won’t be back for at least another five years. To me, it’s worth it to come see that production, and every year there’s new vendors on site. So, to me, you’ve got to come every year to soak it all in and experience each thing.
It’s not every day you get to see the world’s largest Christmas light maze, and so, to me, it’s just a spectacle that’s worth one of your nights in December. If you can bring your family and friends out, I just know you’re going to have a really great time.