Symphony in Lights is switching on three weeks earlier than last year. The annual holiday display at Gulfstream Park Village starts Saturday, Nov. 14, with a live set from the Valerie Tyson Band, then runs nightly through Dec. 31. Last year’s run began Dec. 6, according to the venue’s 2025 event listing. Organizers say more than 250,000 LED lights will cover the open-air Village Center, with a 10-minute show starting at the top of every hour from 6 to 11 p.m.
The ground under the show has history. Gulfstream Park, at 901 South Federal Highway, opened in 1939, and Britannica lists it as the home of the annual Florida Derby. The Village, the shopping and dining center built around the track, opened in 2010. The light show is not new either. Miami Living Magazine’s 2021 coverage cited the same 250,000 lights, and the venue’s 2023 listing promised an expanded music program with remixes of holiday classics. Alex Schreer, marketing director of Gulfstream Village, told WSVN after an earlier kickoff that “the kids are just spectacular, they love this.”
Valerie Tyson Band sets the tone for Symphony in Lights
Tyson is a Hollywood, Florida native who has been billed for years as South Florida’s Queen of Soul. Tamarac Talk reports that she has performed with Gloria Estefan and opened shows for Janet Jackson, Al Green and New Edition. South Florida Times has put her career at more than 35 years of singing soul, blues, R&B and jazz. A set time for the Nov. 14 kickoff was not included in the announcement.
After opening night, the format is simple. Every hour, the lights run through a 10-minute show synced to what organizers describe as holiday favorites and popular music from yesterday and today. The shows run nightly from 6 to 11 p.m. A visitor who arrives at 7:15 waits 45 minutes for the next one, so the schedule rewards people who plan around the hour.
Santa selfies and snow shows give Symphony in Lights five bigger nights
On five dates, the nightly display gets extra programming. Selfies with Santa and snow shows are scheduled from 6 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 28, Saturday, Dec. 5, Saturday, Dec. 12, Saturday, Dec. 19 and Thursday, Dec. 24. The Christmas Eve date is the only weeknight on the list.
Organizers are also pitching the Village as a place to finish the shopping list. They say it houses 11 home stores, among them Crate & Barrel, Williams-Sonoma, West Elm, Pottery Barn, The Container Store and Bang & Olufsen. Yard House, Texas de Brazil and Häagen-Dazs are named as dining stops between stores. Gulfstream Park’s owner, 1/ST, the consumer-facing brand of The Stronach Group, describes the property as sitting between Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International and Miami International airports, about a mile from the Atlantic.
The calendar is the real change this year. Going by the published dates, Symphony in Lights will run 48 nights, up from 26 last year. It will also start before Thanksgiving, which falls on Nov. 26. The Village opened in 2010 as a retail and dining addition to a racetrack that dates to 1939. Sixteen years later, a seasonal light show is one of its annual fixtures, and this season it gets the longest stretch of the calendar it has had in recent years.
