Drive Peace Haven toward Lewisville-Clemmons Road on a November evening and you'll see the same brake lights you've seen the last two years, cars queuing for Tanglewood Park's entrance off Highway 158. What most of those drivers do not know yet is that the show behind that gate changed shape last season, and the change is bigger than a new display or two.
For two years, guests drove a version of the Festival of Lights with a chunk missing. Golf clubhouse construction inside Tanglewood Park forced organizers to cut the route short, skipping the hill that normally leads up toward the clubhouse and rerouting cars past the train displays instead. Forsyth County Parks and Recreation was upfront about it at the time, calling it a "little detour" and promising the missing scenes would return once the building work wrapped. If you visited during those years and came away thinking the lights felt smaller than you remembered, you were not imagining it.
What actually came back with the 34th season
Last November, the detour ended. Drew Wiles, marketing and events manager for Forsyth County Parks and Recreation, told the Clemmons Courier ahead of the 2025-26 season that the full route was reopening for the first time in two years, restoring the stretch that had been cut. The park also added a new "Grist Mill" display near the stables area and a new audio zone that plays holiday music timed to the Caroler displays, on top of the roughly 80 lighted scenes that have anchored the show for years.
That matters more than it sounds. Tanglewood's Festival of Lights started in 1992 as a 1.5-mile loop with twenty to twenty-five displays. Over three decades it grew into the version most Triad families think of, a five-mile drive through more than a million LED lights. A two-year shortfall on a route that took thirty years to build out is not a minor edit. If your last visit was during the construction detour, the show you'll see this time is closer to the full version than what you remember.
A sponsor most of the Triad hasn't clocked yet
The other change is one you'd only notice if you've been paying attention to who pays for the gates and the gift shop. Lowes Foods held the title sponsorship for years, its name attached to the show through multiple seasons including the pandemic-era run in 2020 and the 30th anniversary season in 2021. Last year, that sponsorship shifted. Le Bleu Corporation, the bottled water company, stepped in as the new title sponsor, and Southern Harvest Hospitality Group took over as the event's food vendor. Lowes Foods still runs S'moresville, the marshmallow-roasting stop near the Gift Shop, but the branding on the entrance signage and marketing materials now points to a different name.
None of that changes what you'll pay at the gate or what you'll see on the drive. It does mean that if you're describing the show to a neighbor and calling it the "Lowes Foods lights," you're a season behind.
Picking your night without guessing
The park has never hidden its own advice: come early in the week and early in the season if you want to avoid a wait that stretches past an hour. Thursday through Sunday, especially in December, the line backs up and organizers themselves have warned of waits running several hours on the busiest nights. A Monday or Tuesday visit in the first two weeks after opening gets you close to the same lights with a fraction of the line.
Admission for the 2025-26 season ran $20 cash or $23 by credit card for a standard family vehicle, cars, vans, and trucks, with commercial vans and buses priced higher. The park also ran half-price nights in the first two weeks of the run, a detail easy to miss if you only check the listing once. If you're the type who plans around a deal, those discount nights are worth building your calendar around rather than defaulting to a random Saturday.
Beyond the drive-through, the season carries a short run of named events, most of them stacked in the days just before the gates open to nightly car traffic, plus one that closes the season out:
- Miles for Meals 5K, a run through the lit route benefiting the Hillsdale Church Food Ministry, held the Saturday before the drive-through opens to the public
- TOAST, a walk-through pace for families, strollers, and wagons, held that Sunday
- Paws in the Park, the only two nights dogs are welcome on the route, held that Monday and Tuesday
- Running of the Lights, a midnight 5K on New Year's Eve that closes the season with a run through the same displays drivers have been queuing to see all winter
Exact dates shift by a few days year to year, so the sequence above reflects how last season's calendar landed rather than a promise for this one. If you want a specific event on your calendar, checking the county's own listing closer to opening is worth the two minutes.
For anyone who wants the open-air version instead of a windshield view, Tanglewood Stables still runs horse-drawn carriage rides and tractor-pulled hayrides through the display, both by reservation only, and guests staying at the Excelsior Manor House Bed and Breakfast inside the park get free admission with a room key. WMAG 99.5FM plays holiday music that lines up with the light show if you'd rather not queue up your own playlist for the drive.
Ten minutes from your porch
None of this requires much planning if you live in Springfield Village. Tanglewood Park sits roughly ten minutes away, whether you cut over on Peace Haven and Lewisville-Clemmons Road or hop onto I-40 West to exit 182 at Harper Road. That's closer than most families in Winston-Salem or Greensboro who make a full evening out of the trip, packing snacks and a playlist for the drive in. For Springfield Village, it's closer to a Tuesday-after-dinner errand than a special occasion.
That proximity is exactly why the last two years of the shortened route mattered here more than it did for out-of-town visitors making a once-a-season trip. A ten-minute drive to see half the lights doesn't feel like much of a deal. A ten-minute drive to see the full five miles, with a new display and a sponsor swap you can point out to whoever's in the car with you, is a different proposition. If you wrote off Tanglewood after a disappointing pass through the truncated route, this is the season to give it another look.
Neighbors who've lived here longer than the townhomes have existed will tell you the lights have always been part of what makes a Clemmons winter feel like a Clemmons winter. For the newer households who moved into Springfield Village while the detour was still up, this is the first chance to see why that reputation exists in the first place.
If you're weighing a move into Springfield Village or anywhere else in the Triad and want a neighbor's read on what a season actually looks like here, Banner Team Properties knows this stretch of Clemmons past the listing sheet. Call or message the Banner Team, let's talk about your next move.
