A crowd of people gathered Friday, Nov. 4 to watch Old Town Fort Collins light up with strings of lights for the holidays.

Annually on the first Friday of November, the City of Fort Collins and the Downtown Development Authority partner to host the lighting of thousands of strands of lights across downtown Fort Collins. This event has been going on for two decades, said Mike Brunkhardt, parks senior supervisor for the City of Fort Collins.

“There is a timer on the lights. They turn on at sunset and stay on until sunrise the next morning. The lights are put up the first Friday of November and run until Valentine’s Day.” -Mike Brunkhardt, City of Fort Collins parks senior supervisor

The City of Fort Collins has a longstanding contract with landscape company SavATree, which starts installing the strands of lights in the last week of September and finishes within six weeks, with about 20 people on the crew.

The lights stretch from Magnolia Street on the south border up to Laporte Avenue on the north border, and they reach from Mason Street on the west border to Riverside Street on the east border.

“There is a timer on the lights,” Brunkhardt said. “They turn on at sunset and stay on until sunrise the next morning. The lights are put up the first Friday of November and run until Valentine’s Day. After that day, they are shut off, and SavATree has three weeks to take them all down.”

The more than 76,000 lights used in the display are sustainable LED bulbs that are low energy, according to the City of Fort Collins’ website.

The light display will illuminate Old Town each evening until Tuesday, Feb. 14.

Reach Rebekah Barry at news@collegian.com or on Twitter @csucollegian.