The only business open at The Canopy at Great Park is an In-N-Out Burger. It opened on September 4 at the corner of Bosque and Great Park Boulevard, the first tenant in a center its developer describes as 12 acres and more than 90,000 square feet of retail, dining and daily services. Across the boulevard and around the park, the City's October project report lists active work at a new bridge, a food-and-beverage hub, a playground, a field of shade structures and an event hall.
None of that work is part of this year's holiday season. Every event on the Great Park's calendar between now and New Year's Eve takes place in a space that is already finished or was built to be temporary. The new pieces arrive in 2027, and most of the earliest ones are clustered in one corner of the park.
The Season Runs on What Is Already Standing
Here is the calendar, from this week through the end of December:
- Halloween Movie Night, October 30, at Great Park Live. In a 2024 City notice, this temporary venue was described as operating "through the summer of 2026." Its own schedule still runs into November.
- Dial Up Festival, November 7, also at Great Park Live.
- Dream Glow Festival, November 5 through December 30, at Wild Rivers. The waterpark is closed for the 2026 season.
- Grrrl Germs: Punk feminism goes viral, 1991–2026, through November 29, at the Great Park Gallery. Admission is free. The Gallery is open Thursday and Friday from noon to 4 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Illuminate Irvine, Saturday, December 5, 3 to 8 p.m., with the lighting of the Holiday Tree and the Palm Court Arts Complex. After that night, the Palm Court light display is open daily from dusk to 9 p.m.
- Holiday Skate, December 20, at Great Park Ice, which also runs public skating sessions daily.
All of these venues are already in operation. The Palm Court, the Gallery, the Wild Rivers grounds, and the four-rink, 280,000-square-foot Great Park Ice and FivePoint Arena are not on the City's list of construction projects. Neither is the Great Park Balloon, which the City lists as flying Thursday, Friday and weekends, depending on registration and operating conditions. The season's most expensive ticket and its free events share one trait. None of them depend on anything still being built.
A Closed Waterpark Is the Season's Biggest Draw
Dream Glow shows most clearly how the park puts its idle spaces to work. The Wild Rivers homepage says the park is closed for the 2026 season, links directly to the festival, and lists May 2027 for the waterpark's reopening. Until then, the grounds hold what the Dream Glow Festival describes as more than 1,000 handcrafted light displays in three themed worlds, called Sweet Dreams, Outer Space and Christmas Fantasy. The festival adds live performances, interactive activities, a Christmas market and themed food and drinks.
The details that matter when planning a visit:
- Tickets: adults $37, children $25, and children under 3 free. Premium tickets are $53 for adults and $41 for children, and add expedited entry, an add-on activity and a gift. The organizer says taxes and fees are included.
- Parking: free and on-site.
- Time: the walk-through usually takes about an hour, and visitors may stay until closing.
- Flexibility: unused tickets can be rescheduled or transferred any time before the event ends on December 30. Full refunds are available up to 24 hours before the original start time.
- Access: the route works for wheelchairs and strollers except in the Infinity Mirror Room. There are no rentals on-site, and only certified service animals are allowed.
The Canopy Has One Door Open and a List of Names
The Canopy is where the next stage of the park shows up first. On the day In-N-Out opened, the center named five more businesses expected to begin opening this year: McConnell's Fine Ice Creams, Palmetto Superfoods, Brooks Running, Baba's Hot Chicken and La Jolla Cosmetic. None of them has an individual opening date yet. Ten days later, the Orange County Business Journal reported that nearly 20 tenants were in the works and that developer Almquist planned phased openings from late 2026 into early 2027. T&T Supermarket was announced earlier as the center's anchor.
One tenant from the first wave of announcements gave a timeframe. Shootz co-founder Michael Dancel told the Irvine Standard in early September that it would open "late this year or in early 2027." For now, The Canopy is a burger stop on the way to the rinks or the Palm Court. The places around it are where the more permanent changes are being built.
What the Fences Around the Bosque Will Become
The City's October 2026 Great Park monthly status report lists every active project with its expected completion season. Sorted by finish date, the earliest projects sit in or near the Bosque and The Canopy:
| Project | What it becomes | Status as of the October 2026 report | Anticipated completion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bosque Enhancement | Renovated Bosque landscaping between Cadence and Benchmark, with a new playground | Underway since February | Winter 2026/27 |
| Hangar 10 | A former base-era aircraft hangar turned into a single-story retail, food-and-beverage and recreation building at The Canopy | Construction began in September; underground work next | Summer 2027 |
| Shade Structure Improvement, Phase 2 | 30 shade structures by the soccer fields, play areas and Championship Row | Expected to start in November | Summer 2027 |
| Bosque Bridge | A grade-separated pedestrian and bicycle crossing linking the Bosque Trail network to The Canopy and Hangar 10 | Starts in October | Fall 2027 |
| Canopy 2 Site Improvements | Four more retail buildings, plus the Hornet Drive extension and parking | Out to bid | Winter 2027/28 |
The Bosque Bridge does the most to change how the park is used day to day. It is the first piece of a park-wide network of pedestrian and bicycle crossings. Once it opens, someone walking the Bosque Trail can reach the restaurants at The Canopy and Hangar 10 without crossing traffic at street level.
The Cultural Terrace also has an active site. The City has issued the Notice to Proceed for Building 369, which will be renamed Aviator Hall. It is a 30,000-square-foot base-era building being converted into what the report calls one of the largest standalone flexible indoor event spaces in Orange County, and demolition has started. The same report gives no opening date for it.
Why the Heart of the Park Stays a Work Zone Longer
The Great Park projects with the biggest public profile run on a slower schedule. The October report puts the start of construction on the Lakes, a multi-level, 22-acre lake in the Heart of the Park, at spring 2027. The Heart Loop is a path of nearly 2 miles that will connect the Lakes and the amphitheater. Work on it began in July and is expected to finish in spring 2028. The permanent Great Park Amphitheater is planned for about 10 acres with 10,000 seats, and its construction is listed for 2028 to 2030.
Until those are built, the existing ground carries the big crowds. The October report notes that about 46,000 people attended the one-day Daisy Chain music festival on August 29. City maintenance crews have since been repairing the soccer fields and park areas, where the impact was "substantial, as anticipated." That explains why the temporary Great Park Live venue is still booking shows this fall, and why the holiday season is spread across the Palm Court, the rinks and a closed waterpark.
On the City's schedule, the Bosque playground, Hangar 10, the sports-field shade structures and the Bosque Bridge are all due before the 2027 holiday season. Wild Rivers is due to reopen as a waterpark in May 2027. The amphitheater is scheduled for construction from 2028 to 2030.
The schedule matters for anyone who owns near the Great Park, because the corner by the Bosque is the next part of the park scheduled to open. If you'd like to talk through how the Great Park's buildout fits into your plans in Irvine, Leo Goldschwartz welcomes the conversation. Schedule a private consultation.