Santa Clara County's Fantasy of Lights at Vasona Lake County Park in Los Gatos drew sellout crowds last December but lost $948,537, according to a parks department report on the Board of Supervisors' Nov. 17 agenda.
The report, signed by Parks and Recreation Director Todd Lofgren, says the 27th edition of the holiday display met the goals of its marketing plan yet "continues to operate at a significant loss." Making it financially sustainable, the department wrote, will take a new operating model along with paying sponsors.
The 2025 numbers
- Drive-through nights: about 20,600 vehicle tickets over 21 nights in December, for net sales of $619,699. That was down 7.5% from the year before, which the department attributes to a season three days shorter.
- Walk-through weekend: both nights, Dec. 6 and 7, sold out, with 19,036 tickets and $251,890 in net sales, about the same as the prior year.
- Add-ons: $10,020 in refractive lens sales.
Total net sales came to $882,592. Expenses other than county staff totaled $1,204,843, so tickets covered 73% of those costs. Adding $626,286 in parks labor drops cost recovery to 48%.
Six media sponsors, among them Telemundo 48 and NBC 11 and iHeart Media, provided advertising valued at $100,349 instead of cash. The county also handed out free Jingle Passes to low-income families through 16 government and nonprofit partners; the staff memo puts the number distributed at 2,000, while an attached marketing summary counts 795 redeemed at the gate.