Fort Wayne's New Holiday Lights Combo Is Priced Around Your Car

Fantasy of Lights at Franke Park charges $20 per car, whether one person or five are inside. Wild Lights at the Fort Wayne Zoo and Holiday Lights at Parkview Field charge per person. This is the first year all three have sold one combined ticket, so the bundle had to blend two pricing systems. How much it saves you depends mostly on how many seats in your car are filled and how much leeway you have on dates.

The Fort Wayne Light Fest Combo Ticket went on sale Oct. 20, 2026. It's advertised at 15% off buying each event separately. That figure holds for one kind of household. For others it's too low, and for a few it's close to zero.

One car, then a flat rate per person

Visit Fort Wayne's Light Fest page lists six packages: $39, $59, $79, $99, $119 and $139, for one through six people. Every package includes one standard vehicle at Fantasy of Lights and the matching number of admissions to Wild Lights and Parkview Field Holiday Lights. Larger groups can combine packages.

Each added person costs $20. Bought separately, that same person would cost $24 in November, at $12 for Wild Lights plus $12 for Parkview's Holiday Lights. In December the separate cost is $26, because Parkview's individual ticket goes up to $14 that month. The car fee is the same either way, so your savings come from the $4 to $6 the bundle knocks off for each person. Those savings grow with every seat you fill.

Here is the math, using general admission prices and assuming every walk-through visit happens in the same month:

The advertised 15% matches one adult going in December. A family of four with December plans saves about a fifth. With November prices, savings for every group size come out between 11% and 15%.

The household that saves a dollar

Two discounts already in the system shrink the gap. Fort Wayne Zoo members pay $10 for Wild Lights, $2 off general admission. Parkview Field runs a $10 Tuesday promotion every week of the event. If a Zoo member plans to see Parkview on a Tuesday, each person costs $20 bought separately, the same as the combo's per-person rate. With the car added, the separate total is $20 plus $20 per person, and the combo is $1 less at every package size.

That calculation assumes you buy the Zoo member ticket through the member portal, which is where the Zoo applies the discount. For a member household that likes Tuesday nights downtown, the combo is nearly a wash on price. Its remaining advantage is flexibility, and the calendar shows why that's worth something.

The three calendars overlap less than you'd expect

Undated tickets are easy to overlook in the announcement. Visit Fort Wayne says the combo is the only way to buy undated admission to Wild Lights and Parkview Field Holiday Lights. At Parkview, the only other undated option is a group rate for 20 or more people. Each event runs its own schedule, and the schedules don't line up.

• Parkview Field Holiday Lights runs Nov. 12 through Jan. 2. It's dark Nov. 16 to 18 and on Christmas Day. Gates open at 5:30 or 6 p.m., depending on the night, and close at 9 p.m.
• Wild Lights opens Nov. 13 and runs Friday through Sunday in November, plus Wednesday, Nov. 25. It's closed Thanksgiving. From Dec. 2 to 13 it stays on Friday through Sunday, then opens daily from Dec. 16 through Jan. 3, except Dec. 24 and 25. Hours are 5:30 to 9 p.m.
• Fantasy of Lights runs Nov. 16 through Dec. 31, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Blue Jacket's page doesn't list any closed nights.

Lay them side by side and only one weeknight before Dec. 16 has all three open: Wednesday, Nov. 25. That's also the night of Downtown Fort Wayne's HolidayFest featuring the Night of Lights, from 5:45 to 8 p.m. Otherwise, until mid-December, the only nights when all three overlap are weekends. Fantasy of Lights' opening night falls during Parkview's three dark nights. Wild Lights also closes for good after Jan. 3.

A dated ticket ties you to a night picked weeks ahead. With an undated ticket you can wait and see how the week goes, then fit Wild Lights into a December weeknight once it opens daily. That flexibility is the part of the combo that a member's discount can't replace.

Why three events that compete for your evenings teamed up

Each event is adding more this year, which makes the bundle a bigger evening than it was in 2025. Fort Wayne Business Weekly reported that Fort Wayne Zoo executive director and CEO Rick Schuiteman called the talks, which began about nine months before the launch, daunting at first, then said:

"Hands down, first meeting, everybody agreed this was something we wanted to do."

In the same report, TinCaps president Mike Nutter summed it up as "There's room for everybody here." Here's what each stop is adding.

At the Zoo, 3411 Sherman Blvd. Wild Lights has added more than 300,000 lights for a total of over one million. The schedule includes a nightly tree lighting hosted by Santa's elves, rides on the Evergreen Express, s'mores and sugar cookie decorating. The display no longer stays in the Central Zoo. It now reaches into the Indonesian Rain Forest and Asian Trek, and the carousel is running, according to Business Weekly. On Dec. 16 and 17, the Zoo is adding visits with Santa's reindeer.

Parking at Franke Park. Wild Lights parking is free at the main entrance and at the Zoo Education Center, 600 Franke Park Drive. Blue Jacket's support is adding 100 more spaces by Pavilion 1.

At Fantasy of Lights, 1750 Goshen Ave. The 3-mile drive-through includes free hot cocoa, and drivers can tune to 91.7 FM for event information and holiday music. Blue Jacket CEO Tony Hudson told Business Weekly the route has 10 more displays this year, and that Blue Jacket has run the event for 16 of its 32 years. The Grinch and Frosty the Snowman are scheduled to appear.

The biggest addition in the park is a holiday market. Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana, the group behind the YLNI Farmers Market, will run a producer-only holiday market at the Christmas Village. It's open Fridays and Saturdays from Nov. 27 through Dec. 19, then Sunday through Wednesday, Dec. 20 to 23, from 5:30 to 9 p.m. each night. Hudson described it as the first holiday market ever held inside Franke Park. Every market night falls on a night when Fantasy of Lights is open, so a Friday or Saturday combo visit can include some local holiday shopping.

At Parkview Field. This is the event's third year. The TinCaps list more than 2 million lights, a new music show, Johnny Claus every night, holiday train rides, a craft station with letters to Santa, s'more kits, fire pit warmers and a digital scavenger hunt. You can walk the third-of-a-mile concourse or the quarter-mile warning track at field level, and parking is free. The 2026 run is four nights longer than last year's. Wednesdays are Paws & Claws nights, when you can bring your dog.

Check the toddler rule before you count heads

Since every package is priced by the person, the free-admission age matters, and the three sites don't agree on it. The Light Fest page says children 2 and under are free. The Zoo makes ages 1 and under free at Wild Lights. Parkview requires a ticket for everyone age 2 and older. A family with a 2-year-old could be a 3-person package or a 4-person package, a $20 difference. Ask before you buy. Combo tickets arrive by text or email and are ready immediately, and you show the mobile ticket to an attendant at each gate.

Here's the decision in short. If you're filling most of the car and your December weeknights are open, the combo saves close to 20%. A solo Zoo member with a Tuesday habit saves $1 and gets the undated flexibility. Anyone else falls somewhere between those two.

At Morken Real Estate, we price homes the same way we priced these tickets, starting from posted numbers and working out what they mean for one specific household. If you'd like that kind of math on your own home this season, Request Your Home Valuation and we'll go through it with you.