COLUMN: Successful Christmas Light Extravaganza highlights all Macon has to offer

There are three evenings left to enjoy the Macon Christmas Light Extravaganza downtown if you haven’t already, or plan on catching it again, or want to get out-of-town friends there.

The almost 1 million lights moving to recorded Macon Pops Christmas music covering most of Poplar Street and a good part of Third Street continues through Sunday with shows on the hour at 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. daily.

Organizers said the event has been going exceptionally well though an exact approximation of visitors isn’t possible even at this stage. Still, a measure of success is revealed by how surrounding businesses are faring and several owners have said business was better than – well, literally ever.

“It’s going great,” said Emily Hopkins, NewTown Macon’s director of place and Main Street Macon manager. “We work with Visit Macon towards the end to get a number estimate and last year that number was about 600,000. But I’ve heard from a couple of businesses that they had the biggest days in their history during the extravaganza this year so that’s exciting.

“People are coming and enjoying the lights, enjoying being downtown and taking advantage of the shopping, dining and entertainment possibilities. And they’re seeing that downtown is a family-friendly place. The extravaganza is all of that while also being a catalyst for development. But me personally, I really love seeing so many families coming downtown – some for the first time or the first time in decades.”

Hopkins said the expansion of the light show through more lights, more music and another city block covered means there’s more space for growing numbers of visitors to stroll and take advantage of special events like Selfies with Santa, live reindeer and the very popular carriage rides. Of course, there was also Macon’s Christmas parade.

The unique Christmas lights display is winding up its sixth year and is the brainchild of Macon businessman Bryan Nichols. The first year, before anyone had seen the fruits of his imagination and labors, there was skepticism and Nichols got plenty of strange looks up in the trees stringing lights on his own all those months before Christmas.

Now, he said, he only gets smiles and honks and happy waves and he’s not the only one doing the work. He said others are lending a hand but he’s still the one up in the trees and does the lion’s share of programming and technical wizardry.

“People don’t see the other side of it with all the delays in lights and equipment arriving and all the problems you run into day after day and year after year – but it’s worth it,” he said. “I can be out there chasing down some impossible problem or clearing things up when someone didn’t pick up after their dog and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why in the world am I doing this.’

“Then I overhear someone talk about what a great time they’re having, how much it means to them or see some kid having the time of their life and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s why.’ And I can go away smiling.”

Or see someone down on one knee proposing.

“You know, it’s not just a great thing to do at Christmas and a great thing for Macon, for businesses and development, it’s things like seeing a proposal and other things not so dramatic, I realize people, couples and families are making lifetime memories that can’t be equaled – and I just happen to see a very few of them.

“It really is heartening to see that the idea is working and actually working better than any of us imagined as far as every goal we might have had for it. Not only are people in Macon and Middle Georgia enjoying it but about 50 percent of the car tags I see are from other parts of Georgia and other states.”

Nichols and others have plenty of stories, like a couple who said they were traveling to Florida and simply decided to get past Atlanta before stopping for the night. They stayed at Hotel 45 and were surprised when they saw the lights. They reportedly decided to stay the weekend and said they’d be back every Christmas.

Another couple happened to be in Macon and stopped at Just Tap’d. They were there just before the lights came on and when they did they were astonished asking, “Oh, my gosh! What is that?”

“Macon has a lot to offer,” Nichols said. “A lot of people don’t know about us but are finding out. We’re getting more and more attention as we do more, as there are articles about us in magazines like Forbes and as we get mentioned on TV. The word’s getting out.”

Keep in touch with the extravaganza at www.facebook.com/MaconChristmasLights.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.

This story was originally published December 30, 2022 at 7:00 AM.