Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia and Steven Goodling, the President of the Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau hosted a virtual tree lighting event on Wednesday.
The event started out with “The Spirit of Holidays Past,” which showed off footage from previous years like parades, singing, and the gatherings at the Long Beach Terrace Plaza.
The configurations of the Christmas Lights around downtown Long Beach, Shoreline Village and the lighthouse were also shown.
The event opened with Goodling welcoming those at home to the live event. Goodling explained that this is the 6th year the City of Long Beach has held the event.
He said, “Six years ago, Mayor Garcia called, and said ‘Steve, I’d like to create a community event, something that brings people together at the holidays.’”
Goodling said that the event is cooperation between the CVB Board and ASM Global, who have sponsored this event for the last six years.
SoCal Vocals, a choir group, has performed a cappella at the event for the past three years, and this year was no exception.
As they sang, footage of the singers was cut in combination with videos of past events.
Not long after the singers finished, Goodling said, “Next year when we have all of you back, all 5,000 of you, we’ll have SoCal back with us, and we’ll have another great event in the Terrace Theater Plaza.”
He also introduced a Christmas message from the City Council after introducing Garcia.
Garcia spoke from Long Beach Terrace Theater.
“Normally we would have thousands of people here, I’m actually here alone bringing this to you virtually,” Garcia said.
He went on to talk about how COVID-19 has impacted this year’s celebration.
“I wanna also say that, it’s been a tough year, we are in the midst of the biggest challenge our country has faced in a generation.”
Garcia then gave a message for those affected, including workers and medical staff, and acknowledged the families that have lost someone due to COVID-19.
“So now, we’re going to light this tree and it’s gonna stay lit for the holiday season,” he said.
Then, he flipped the lever and the tree lit up.
The tree can be viewed at the Long Beach Terrace Plaza.