Downtown Macon light show a community effort
A few years ago, I was sitting with the Main Street Macon board at our regular monthly meeting. We were talking about things to do for the upcoming holiday season in downtown Macon: how to make the season more bright, how to get more visitors (and locals) spreading cheer and spending time downtown, and how to bring attention to local businesses. In short, how to make this the merriest time the city has ever seen.
Bryan Nichols, a local business owner and fellow Main Street Macon board member, spoke up about how so many neighboring areas have incredible light displays that bring people from miles around. Why doesn’t Macon have something like that in its wide, beautiful avenues that make up our downtown, we wondered?
Longtime Maconites piped up with fond memories of light displays you could once find downtown, such as the music notes over the bridge at Central City Park. We mused about what had happened to all those lights and were told by Mechel McKinley (the Main Street Macon manager at the time) that they were, in fact, all in storage gathering dust, sorely lacking new LED replacement bulbs. At that point, Bryan took it upon himself to bring these lights back to Macon.
What followed was an inspiring case of citizenry, a shining example of bringing joy to our neighbors. Bryan spent many a day off, accompanied by other volunteers, in the dusty warehouse where the old lights were stored, sorting out broken lights, counting how many LED bulbs were needed, then cleaning and counting and sorting. hen came the fundraising, the grant applying and, finally, the mounting of an incredible, unique light display that has astonished and amused folks from all over the region.
The lights aren’t just dazzling to see. They are also accompanied by the beautiful sounds of the Macon Pops Orchestra and other local artists, who recorded music written by the orchestra’s artistic director and conductor, Matt Catingub, making the displays a truly Macon experience.
The whole journey from idea to planning to working to execution to final product is, for me, the embodiment of the holiday spirit, plus the we-can-do-that attitude of the best of Macon’s population. The idea of seeing something that your home is lacking, and forgoing the usual grumbles to actually formulate a plan and see it through, to bring that missing piece to make that home a little or a lot better. The notion that we can work hard on creating something that brings beauty, joy and a sense of community to everyone who experiences it.
For more information, check out the Facebook event here:
This story was originally published December 12, 2017 at 2:40 PM with the headline "Downtown Macon light show a community effort."