MARBLE FALLS – The 40,000 visitors last year to the Walkway of Lights on the shores of Lake Marble Falls could be a welcome signal to local restaurants, merchants and retailers to expect an economic shot in the arm this year.
At the same time, the annual holiday event boasting 1 million lights and dozens of glowing Yuletide sculptures, is more about enjoying the season than simply generating a profit.
There is no admission charge; any windfall to local businesses from the traditional and beloved display is secondary.
Sponsored by the Marble Falls/Lake LBJ Chamber of Commerce and many other groups and individuals, the Walkway itself is not an event that is revenue-specific only.
“We do help sponsor the Walkway, but it’s pretty much a revenue-neutral event,” Chamber Executive Director Christian Fletcher said. “Any money brought in by donations is enough to keep it running, and anything left over is used toward the purchase of additional sculptures or repair and replacement of old equipment. Basically, it takes care of itself.”
Last year, donations from the event — also called the Trail of Lights — reached nearly $20,000.
Fletcher said the main reason the Chamber supports the event is because of its significance to residents and business owners.
“The Trail of Lights is our gift to the community. We have a paid staff member, Kerri Roberts, who uses a couple of months out of the year working on the Walkway project, but it is also a collaboration with the city of Marble Falls (which) donates the space that is used,” Fletcher said.
The winter wonderland, visible from the U.S. 281 bridge, is in Lakeside Park, 307 Buena Vista Drive.
Fletcher added donations have gone down in the last few years, yet attendance is up.
“Our average donation right now is 50 cents per visitor. Let’s look at it this way: If everyone who visits donated $1, we could grow this event exponentially,” Fletcher said.
The Walkway relies on the assistance of volunteer greeters who staff the entrance each night and ask guests to register their visit and complete a form. The form is a marketing tool, asking if the visitors are staying overnight.
Event officials want to measure the impact the Walkway has on the community.
Officials say out of the almost 40,000 people who walked the trail last year, two-thirds of those were considered tourists who lived outside the Highland Lakes. Guests from 22 countries and every state in the United States visited the Walkway.
George Byrd says he started working on the event on behalf of his employer, the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, but he continued to aid the project for many years afterward. He has also served as a chairman on the Trail of Lights committee.
“I started going down there to coordinate PEC’s involvement and help with what they needed, but once you get started, you get into it and you love it. We’ve worked hard over the years trying to make it bigger and better and come up with different ideas,” Byrd said.
In the past, there has been some discussion about charging a fee for visitors to the Trail of Lights, but Byrd says he has fought that idea every step of the way.
“This is for everyone and it benefits a lot of people. You put in a lot of hours, but when you see that first group go through or the look on a child’s face who sees all those lights, their expression lets you know you wouldn’t want to block anybody from being able to see this,” Byrd said.
Byrd says he and other volunteers have seen the event grow from hanging a few lights on some persimmon trees when it started in 1991 to 1 million lights and tens of thousands of visitors last year.
The cost of powering the display runs about $3,000; the city allows the electricity to run off their meters. At the end of last year’s event, the committee spent $7,000 on repairs and purchased new sculptures.
Some civic groups are also invited to run concession stands or take pictures for profit. These groups range from high school classes to members of the Kiwanis Club.
The downturn in the economy, as well as the recent spate of shuttered restaurants on Main Street, have taken a toll.
“It’s been a little more challenging this year with some recent closings in terms of what people can do when they come into town. We’ve placed ads in ‘Texas Highways,’ have run some television commercials and we feel like our success with the Walkway goes arm-in-arm with the businesses in our community who benefit from the tourists who come here,” Fletcher said.
He said the goal is to get more exposure to bring people to the merchants and restaurants in the area.
“I think what we’ve found historically, is that it’s one of our major tourist events for the city of Marble Falls,” Burnet County Judge Donna Klaeger said. “Our goal on behalf of the city and Chamber is to bring people to the community, and this has become a tradition for many who know it’s a holiday event for the whole family.”
The Trail of Lights is just one of the stops on the Texas Hill Country Regional Lighting Trail, which encompasses a number of cities in Central Texas. Fletcher said they hope to continue working toward making Marble Falls a major hub for the cities featured on the Lighting Trail.
“The economy is affected by all these events, and that’s why we want to continue with the spirit and intent for which the Walkway of Lights was intended,” Byrd said.
