Santa Monica’s Landmark Turns Pink for Dolly Parton Tribute

The Pacific Wheel doesn’t usually turn this shade of pink. Tuesday night it did, and by the time word got out, Pacific Park had already decided one night wasn’t going to be enough.

Dolly Parton died Tuesday at 80, after what her publicist described as a brief battle with cancer, and within hours the tributes started stacking up across the country — the Empire State Building, the Willis Tower, her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

On the Santa Monica Pier, Pacific Park answered with the only thing it really has to offer: its Ferris wheel, lit up in her signature pink, running through the weekend of August 26–30, 2026, from sunset to midnight.

A Wheel Built to Say Something

The Pacific Wheel isn’t a simple string of lights. It’s the world’s only solar-powered Ferris wheel, carrying 174,000 LED lights wired across 40 spokes and two hubs, capable of 16.7 million color combinations and imaging at up to 24 frames per second.

That’s a lot of engineering pointed at one goal this week: making sure a coastline landmark spells out “DOLLY” and “WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!” against the night sky, alongside pink hearts, stars, and spiral animations sweeping across all 90 feet of it.

It’s worth sitting with what that setup actually means in practice. This isn’t a static banner. It’s a nine-story structure, visible for miles along the Pacific Ocean, reprogrammed in under 48 hours to carry a message — and extended through the weekend because one night of tribute didn’t feel like enough to the people running it.

Why Santa Monica, Specifically

Parton’s death Tuesday in Nashville, at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, surrounded by family, closed a six-decade career that reached far past Nashville and country radio — into Hollywood, into philanthropy, into a kind of cultural ubiquity that doesn’t sort neatly by genre or coast. That’s part of why a Santa Monica amusement park putting up a pink Ferris wheel doesn’t feel like a stretch. Parton’s reach touched Los Angeles the same way it touched Sevierville, Tennessee, where fans gathered at her statue, and Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame, where the mourning has been loudest.

Pacific Park is LA’s only admission-free amusement park, sitting on one of the most photographed piers in the country. When it lights the wheel for something, tens of thousands of people driving Pacific Coast Highway or walking the pier at night see it whether they were looking for it or not. That’s the amplification a landmark like this can offer that a smaller tribute can’t.

What You’ll See, and When

The expanded pink lighting program runs nightly from sunset — around 7:30 p.m. — until midnight, Wednesday, August 26 through Sunday, August 30.

The text elements (“DOLLY” and “WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!”) rotate with the pink hearts, stars, and spiral animations across the wheel’s full LED array. Pacific Park’s other 12 rides, 14 midway games, and Snackville food offerings continue operating on regular hours alongside the tribute.

The eco-conscious detail matters more than it might seem to at first glance: the LED system runs at roughly 81 percent greater energy efficiency than a traditional incandescent-bulb Ferris wheel, meaning this tribute is running on largely self-generated solar power — a quiet footnote, but one that fits a woman who spent as much of her career funding literacy programs and vaccine research as she did topping charts.

A Kind Gesture, Aimed at a Big Loss

Parton’s influence on Los Angeles specifically ran through film and television as much as music — a career that moved through Hollywood soundstages the same way it moved through Nashville studios.

It’s a landmark doing the one thing landmarks can do: making a private grief visible in a public place, for anyone walking by to notice.

How long will the Pacific Wheel’s Dolly Parton tribute run? The expanded pink lighting tribute runs nightly from sunset (around 7:30 p.m.) to midnight, Wednesday through Sunday, August 26–30, 2026, at Pacific Park on the Santa Monica Pier.

What does the Ferris wheel display show? The Pacific Wheel displays the phrases “DOLLY” and “WE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU!” alongside pink hearts, pink stars, and sweeping pink spiral animations, using its 174,000-LED lighting system.

Is Pacific Park free to visit? Yes. Pacific Park is LA’s only admission-free amusement park, though individual rides, games, and food are paid separately. Hours and pricing are subject to change; call 310-260-8744 or visit pacpark.com for current details.

Join In Saying Goodbye to Dolly

If you’re on the pier this week, look up after sunset. The wheel that’s usually just part of the postcard view is doing something more specific through Sunday night — spelling out a name that meant something to a lot of people who never got to say