Lights are one of the most powerful visual elements of the Christmas season. We love the twinkling colourful lights in dazzling arrays on someone’s home, or a business.
This holiday season will be the 17th year for Upper Canada Village’s award winning Alight at Night. What started off as a relatively small event has become a huge festival drawing thousands. As most successful ideas are, the original concept was simple. Put lots of strings of lights everywhere. Light them up.
Alight at Night draws crowds from all over the region. This area has struggled to successfully tie in and benefit from that tourist influx. The counties and South Dundas have said that tourism is a key driver of our economy.
Yet year after year we spin our collective wheels. More needs to be done to attract and retain tourists who go to the Village.
The solution for this may be something as simple as the idea that started Alight at Night: light it up.
Travel west from UCV to Morrisburg at night. What do you see? Houses on one side of the road, pitch black darkness on the other. Why do the fantastic displays of lit up holiday symbols only have to be at the Village? Why couldn’t there be displays all along the road connecting UCV and Morrisburg?
In Morrisburg, and all of South Dundas, why couldn’t there be more businesses and houses decorated with lights? This idea has proven it works at Upper Canada Village. Could the same concept draw people into Morrisburg too?
To get more people into the spirit, to light up the area for the holidays, perhaps a community-minded business or group could make a contest of it. Get enough businesses to chip in a little, and watch the lights turn on through peoples’ imagination. There are aisles of lights already for sale in local businesses. A friendly competition could spur some sales.
Drawing tourists to our area and keeping them here to shop, to enjoy a meal, just to look around, is not rocket science. It does not take long-term studies and convoluted ideas. The simplest ideas are often the most successful. Turn on the lights. Show them the way.
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