Holidazzle—or the memory of it—seems to come up in virtually every meeting the Minneapolis Downtown Council hosts about future planning and revitalization of the city’s central business district. Executives and residents alike will reflect warmly on the light parade that for more than 20 years rolled down Nicollet Mall at holiday time and then, in recent years, morphed into a festival at Loring Park. In those meetings with city boosters and business leaders, there are calls to “bring back Holidazzle” to Nicollet, or turn it into something even bigger.

But those warm memories have not translated into dollars, and so the Minneapolis Downtown Council has canceled Holidazzle for 2023. The organization emphasized that this is a “one-season decision.” President and CEO Steve Cramer said in a statement on Tuesday that his organization plans to “refocus our energy on Holidazzle 2024 and beyond.”

Holidazzle costs more than $1 million to produce, the council’s vice president of external relations Leah Wong said. The festival’s charms can also be its handicaps. “Holidazzle is an outdoor public event that doesn’t take place within four walls. It requires significant setup and full infrastructure build out to create a temporary venue for holiday magic,” Wong said. “Plus, it’s a winter event that comes with a number of unexpected weather challenges…It requires significant investment to keep it free and accessible to all in our community.”

Wong said the council made the difficult decision to cancel for 2023 after “exhausting all possible ways to deliver the event in the way the community has come to love and expect.”

The free holiday festival draws an estimated 200,000 each year, bringing in suburban and even some out of state visitors for its live entertainment, fire works, carnival rides, photos with Santa, and local makers market. Wong noted that Holidazzle isn’t the only community event struggling with funding. Open Streets, for one, is searching for new funding after the city of Minneapolis ended its partnership with the summer event series.

“We are home to incredible public events that welcome the community,” Wong said in an interview Wednesday. “But sustainable funding continues to be a concern and one we need to address together.”

The event cancellation comes at the end of a summer in which the downtown council boasted more than 1,800 downtown events and a campaign that encouraged office workers to come back, and take advantage of summer in the city. The council recently kicked off its “2035 planning and vision process” involving more than 200 local leaders from business, government, and the arts. Wong said the future of the Holidazzle will be “an important topic” for that group.

“The Minneapolis Downtown Council, private sector, and government partners worked hard to meet the moment this year in helping our downtown during a pivotal time in our city’s core,” Wong said. “Much of our collective investment was front-loaded to continue to create and lean into momentum we were seeing from return to officers and increased sentiment.”
The downtown council is encouraging the community to share Holidazzle memories, comments and ideas at www.holidazzle.com.

“We are working with internal and external partners to explore a sustainable future for Holidazzle,” Wong said.

Someone who knows all too well the challenge of drawing downtown crowds and turning warm memories into action is Mich Berthiaume, who produces the Departments at Dayton’s holiday makers’ market that will return to Dayton’s Project in November. Last holiday season, the market drew crowds by bringing back Santa Bear, a beloved Dayton’s tradition.

“Holidazzle as a brand has that same nostalgic quality,” Berthiaume said. “The opportunity is to think about what it could be in a new way, and possibly a new place.”