The Plaza Lights

The Plaza Lights are Kansas City’s signature holiday tradition: an annual installation that outlines nearly every building of the Country Club Plaza in colored bulbs, switched on each Thanksgiving evening and shining nightly through mid-January.

Summary

The Plaza Lights are the outdoor holiday lighting display at the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. Every winter the Plaza’s distinctive Spanish-revival buildings are traced in colored bulbs along their rooflines, towers, domes, windows, and doorways, turning the open-air shopping district into one of the most recognizable seasonal sights in the American Midwest. The display today comprises roughly 80 miles of wiring and more than 280,000 multi-colored bulbs.¹²

Key facts:

• Outlines virtually every Plaza building, tracing architectural detail in continuous strands of light
• Currently uses approximately 80 miles of lighting and 280,000+ bulbs
• Switched on at the annual Thanksgiving-evening ceremony and lit nightly through mid-January
• Has grown from a single 16-bulb strand hung in 1925 into Kansas City’s defining civic tradition

The tradition traces to a single strand of lights hung above one Plaza doorway on Christmas Day 1925, and to the first formal lighting ceremony in 1930. With the lone exception of 1973, the Plaza has been lit every holiday season since.¹³

History

1925 origin

The tradition began on December 25, 1925, when Charles “Pete” Pitrat, maintenance supervisor for the Nichols Company, draped a single strand of roughly 16 colored bulbs over the entrance of what is now the Mill Creek Building on 47th Street.³⁴ The modest gesture proved popular, and developer J.C. Nichols and his company soon recognized the appeal of holiday lighting as a draw for the young shopping district that had opened in 1922.

The 1925 origin event is documented in fuller detail at The Plaza Lighting Ceremony Origin; this page covers the ongoing tradition through subsequent decades.

First ceremony and early growth

The first official Plaza Lighting Ceremony was held in 1930, five years after Pitrat’s first strand.¹⁴ Through the 1930s the display expanded from a single doorway to multiple buildings, growing alongside the Plaza’s own commercial expansion and the Nichols Company’s commitment to making the lights an annual fixture. Each year more of the district’s rooflines and towers were brought into the installation.

The 1973 cancellation

The lights have been displayed every holiday season since 1930 with a single exception: 1973, when President Richard Nixon asked Americans to conserve energy during the oil crisis and the Plaza left its lights dark for the season.¹³ This remains the only year the tradition was suspended.

Some accounts also describe reduced or modified lighting during the World War II conservation years (1942–1945); the extent of any wartime change is not firmly documented.

Postwar expansion and broadcast era

Through the postwar decades the display grew steadily as the Plaza’s footprint expanded, and the Thanksgiving-night switch-on developed into a major regional event. By the late twentieth century the ceremony was carried on local television and drew crowds in the tens of thousands. The utility now known as Evergy (formerly KCP&L) became the long-running ceremony sponsor, and the event has carried its name for decades.²⁵

LED transition

In recent years the Plaza has converted much of the display to energy-efficient LED bulbs, which lower operating costs, last longer than incandescent strands, and allow color programming, while preserving the traditional jewel-toned look of the installation.

The lighting ceremony

The annual Thanksgiving-evening lighting ceremony is the centerpiece of the tradition and one of Kansas City’s largest public gatherings. Its format has settled into a familiar pattern:

• Held on Thanksgiving evening each November, typically running into the night
• Live music, performances, and family programming precede the switch-on
• A countdown leads to the moment the lights are illuminated for the season, often accompanied by fireworks
• A guest “switch-flipper” does the honors — in 2025 members of the Kansas City Current flipped the switch around 7:55 p.m.²

The ceremony draws crowds estimated at nearly 100,000 people in person, plus a wide regional television audience.²⁴ After the switch-on, the lights anchor the Plaza’s entire holiday shopping and dining season.

Scale and logistics

Once lit, the display runs nightly for roughly seven weeks. In the 2025–2026 season the lights shone from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily, from Thanksgiving (November 27, 2025) through January 11, 2026.²

The current installation totals approximately 80 miles of lighting and more than 280,000 bulbs, outlining nearly every dome, tower, window, and roofline across the district — a scale that has grown from the original 16-bulb strand over a single century.¹²

Cultural significance

The Plaza Lights are Kansas City’s most visible and most photographed civic tradition, and effectively mark the start of the holiday season across the metro. Their significance runs along several lines:

• A century-scale civic tradition. Continuous since 1930 (excepting 1973), the lights are among the oldest sustained holiday traditions of their kind in the country, reaching their 96th annual ceremony in 2025.²
• A commercial and cultural anchor. The display drives the Plaza’s holiday shopping and dining season and draws regional visitors to the district throughout the winter.
• A city identity signature. The lights appear routinely in Kansas City tourism imagery and seasonal coverage, alongside other local traditions such as the Mayor’s Christmas Tree.
• A broadcast tradition. The Thanksgiving switch-on is carried on Kansas City television each year, extending the ceremony’s reach well beyond the in-person crowd.

Sites in KC associated with the Plaza Lights

• Country Club Plaza — the installation site; lights span nearly every Plaza building
• Mill Creek Building — site of the original 1925 single-strand display on 47th Street
• Plaza-area viewing spots — including 47th Street and the Mill Creek Park / Brush Creek area
• Plaza ownership and Evergy — current producers and sponsor of the annual ceremony

Sources

Footnotes

1. KC Yesterday, “The Story of the Plaza Lights.” https://kcyesterday.com/articles/plaza-lights ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

2. Visit KC, “Kansas City Plaza Lights 2025.” https://www.visitkc.com/articles/kansas-city-plaza-lights/ ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

3. KCTV5, “This Day in History: Switch flips at first Plaza Lighting Ceremony.” https://www.kctv5.com/2025/11/27/this-day-history-switch-flips-first-plaza-lighting-ceremony/ ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Kansas City Magazine, “More than 200,000 jewel-colored bulbs will blanket the Country Club Plaza this holiday season—but how did it begin?” https://kansascitymag.com/more-than-200000-jewel-colored-bulbs-will-blanket-the-country-club-plaza-this-holiday-season-but-how-did-it-begin/ ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. KSHB, “A look back at the history of the KCP&L Plaza Lighting.” https://www.kshb.com/news/a-look-back-at-the-history-of-the-kcp-l-plaza-lighting ↩