Ferris wheel turns globe

Pacific Park turned its Ferris wheel on the Santa Monica Pier into a 90-foot spinning globe for Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22. (smdp.com) The one-night display ran from sunset to midnight and covered the wheel in green and blue Earth-themed imagery. Visit Santa Monica listed the event from 7:30 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. on April 22. (smdp.com) (santamonica.com) The animation came from 174,000 LED lights mounted across the wheel’s 40 spokes and two hubs. Pacific Park says the system can show dynamic computer-generated images at up to 24 frames per second. (santamonicanext.org) (pacpark.com) The stunt centered on a ride Pacific Park bills as the world’s only solar-powered Ferris wheel. The Pacific Wheel rises more than 130 feet above the pier and is one of the park’s main visual landmarks. (pacpark.com 1) (pacpark.com 2) Earth Day’s 2026 theme was “Our Power, Our Planet,” and the Santa Monica event tied that message to renewable energy and environmental stewardship on the California coast. Local listings framed the lighting as a public Earth Day celebration rather than a ticketed ceremony. (santamonica.com) (earthday.org) Pacific Park has used the wheel for Earth Day lighting before, including similar globe displays in 2020, 2024 and 2025. The 2026 version kept that annual playbook while leaning on the pier’s family-tourism setting to put climate messaging in front of beach crowds. (pacpark.com) (santamonicanext.org) (smdp.com) The wheel’s lighting hardware was upgraded in 2016, and Pacific Park says the LEDs use less energy than older incandescent Ferris wheel bulbs. That lets the park turn the ride itself into a giant screen without swapping out the structure each year. (pacpark.com) (patch.com) By late Wednesday, the globe had done its job: a familiar Santa Monica landmark became an Earth Day billboard visible from the pier, the beach and the shoreline around it. (smdp.com) (kfiam640.iheart.com)