The Bay Lights Begins Tonight!

Six months of intensive work—a 1.5-mile-wide, 500-foot-high network of fiber and power lines, 25,000 LEDs, 48,000 clips—culminates tonight in a much-anticipated display. The installation—which will shine every evening until 2 a.m. for two years—will bring nearly $100 million dollars in additional revenues to the region, according to expert estimates. Perhaps even more astonishing than its sheer scale, artist Leo Villareal has programmed the illuminating patterns of these thousands of lights to change continuously through 2015 without a single repeating pattern.

"The world will be watching the waterfront, and watching from the water. The idea of using the bridge as a surface makes it timely in a way that’s absolutely distinctive," says Henry Urbach, the Director of Philip Johnson’s Glass House.

If you can't see the event in person, you can watch the live stream of The Bay Lights here.