Lights and art at Ijams Park
One night a year the trail behind the Visitor Center turns into an after-dark gallery you walk through. Sunday is the night, and the $175 ticket is what keeps the park free the other 364.
The art comes first. On Sunday evening the paved Universal Trail that runs from the Ijams Park Visitor Center into the trees is strung with lights and lined with installations — what the park calls interactive vignettes, built to be walked through slowly with a drink in hand. Around that, the rest of the party: small plates from local kitchens, a campfire with a proper s'mores bar, a band while the sun goes down over the ridge, a silent auction. It's called Twilight at Ijams, it is the park's largest fundraiser of the year, and this is the night.
- When
- Sun Sep 13 · 6–9 PM · VIP hour from 5
- Where
- Ijams Visitor Center and the Universal Trail · 2915 Island Home Ave
- Tickets
- $175 · VIP $275 · tables of ten from $1,500
- On offer
- Local small bites, beer, wine and cocktails, a campfire s'mores bar, live music, silent auction
- Dress
- "Nature-inspired" — whatever that means to you
- Sunset
- About 7:45, so the lights come on mid-party
- Not going?
- Expect the Visitor Center end of the park to be a private event Sunday evening
What the ticket buys
A $175 ticket gets you in at six for three hours of food and drink — the bites are from local restaurants and caterers, and the bar runs beer, wine and cocktails. A $275 VIP ticket opens the doors an hour early for a cocktail hour at five. Tables of ten start at $1,500, which is how the park's bigger friends tend to show up. The installations along the trail are the reason to walk it slowly; the auction and the campfire are why people stay past the band.
Why it costs what it costs
Ijams Park is free to walk every day of the year, and the nature center behind it is a nonprofit that runs on exactly this kind of night. Twilight is the one evening where the people who use the trails for nothing are asked, politely and with a drink in hand, to pay for them. If the ticket is out of reach, the park has other doors — memberships, the $15 walks and workshops that run every week — and the trail will look ordinary again by Monday morning.
If you're just out for a Sunday walk
Plan around it. Expect the Visitor Center end of the park — the lot, the lawn and the Universal Trail — to be a private event from late afternoon on. The Mead's Quarry side off Island Home Avenue, the Playscape and the trail network beyond it aren't part of the party, and the weekend's other Ijams Park events, the Friday fungi walk and Saturday's storytime, run as scheduled. Sunset Sunday is about a quarter to eight, so if you want to see the lights without a ticket, the river overlooks give you the ridge, not the trail.
