Kamloops residents on the Seniors Lights Tour/via City of Kamloops

The City of Kamloops has set this year’s date for the annual Seniors Christmas Lights Tour.

This year’s event is scheduled for the evening of December 7th.

Community Events Coordinator Janvi Desai says busses will pick up those 55 and over who have pre-registered online beginning around 6:30.

This year’s event will once-again see shuttle buses dispatched to various locations around the city to pick up seniors at designated spots, where they’ll then be taken to the Sandman Center as the rallying point.

Last year, due to confusion and miscommunication, numerous seniors were left waiting in the cold at pick-up locations where buses never arrived.

Desai says the city is confident they won’t have the same issues this year.

“All our volunteering positions are full. People have approached us well in advance,” said Desai.  “Transdev and BC First Transit, their volunteers are full too.”

Desai says they’ve also changed the route this year.

Map of 2023 Seniors Lights Tour in Kamloops/via City of Kamloops

“So this year we have the tour in mostly the downtown area wherein it would be the western neighbourhood, the downtown neighbourhood, mainly Victoria Street and the Sagebrush neighborhoods,” Desai told NL Newsday on Thursday.  “This time we have a new route so it would be great if people would go online and check out the new route. And we would like to request all the neighborhoods to light up their houses for the light tour so that our seniors can enjoy it.”

This year, the seniors Christmas light tour has room for around 600 participants on 25 different buses, with registration already over half full.

–With files from Brett Mineer