Kansas City Royals catcher Carter Jensen will flip the switch on this year's Plaza lights, bringing a hometown hero back to Country Club Plaza for the 97th Annual Plaza Lighting Ceremony on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2026. The 23-year-old Park Hill High School graduate, who just wrapped a record-breaking rookie season behind the plate for the Royals, will throw the switch that illuminates the Plaza's famed holiday lights in front of his own Kansas City family.
The ceremony is scheduled to run earlier than in past years, with a live preshow starting at 5 p.m. and the main stage show following at 5:30 p.m., according to KMBC. The lights are expected to flip on just before 6:30 p.m., a notably earlier slot than in 2025, when the KCUR reported the switch flip wasn't scheduled until 7:55 p.m. The earlier timing this year is intentional: Plaza officials want to make sure attendees can get home in time to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game, per the station's report.
The event is free and open to the public, with free parking planned at several nearby garages, the same report notes. Best viewing spots are expected along Nichols Road between Pennsylvania and Broadway.
A Rookie Season for the Record Books
Jensen isn't just any ballplayer getting a ceremonial honor — he's coming off a season that rewrote the Royals' record books. He hit his 25th home run of the season in a game reported in September, surpassing Bob Hamelin's 24 homers from 1994 to set the franchise's rookie home-run record, according to KCTV5.
He finished the 2026 season with 27 home runs, 81 RBIs and 35 doubles across 149 games, per The Kansas City Star. His 64 extra-base hits also surpassed Hall of Famer Mike Piazza's mark for most extra-base hits by a rookie catcher, the newspaper reported.
From Park Hill Fan to Royals Catcher
Jensen's path back to the Plaza runs through a lifetime of Kansas City baseball memories. As a kid, he attended the 2014 World Series between the Royals and the San Francisco Giants as a fan, per the dossier's account of his background. He initially committed to Mizzou before ultimately attending LSU, and he's spent part of his offseason routine returning annually to Surprise, Arizona, for spring training — the same city where he played youth baseball.
Now in his second major-league season, Jensen plays alongside veteran catcher Salvador Perez. In a statement about the honor of flipping the switch, Jensen said performing the ceremony in his hometown with his Kansas City family is an incredible honor.
Live Music, Dance and a Hometown Broadcast
The stage show will feature a lineup that includes vocalist Ben Gulley, QUIXOTIC, Sound Proof from KC A Cappella, Vocalocity, Miller Marley Dance Company and DJ Kirby Hamm, according to the station's report. KMBC is the ceremony's exclusive broadcast partner, and the station plans to air the stage show live on KMBC 9 News.
Once lit, the Plaza lights are expected to stay on through Jan. 10, 2027. The tradition traces back to 1925, when a single strand of Christmas lights was strung over a store entrance, according to VisitKC. The first full lighting ceremony followed in 1930, and the lights have gone dark only once in their history — in 1973, when President Nixon called for reduced holiday lighting to conserve foreign oil imports, per the same source. A lights test is typically held the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, between 2 and 6 a.m., ahead of the big reveal.
