Between $500 and $5,000 in funding is available to Stratford tourism businesses interested in creating artistic and unique light displays for this year’s Lights On Stratford Shareable Moments Challenge.
For the third straight year, Destination Stratford and RTO4 – the area’s regional tourism organization – are encouraging local tourism businesses to design their own lights displays for this year’s Lights On Stratford winter festival of lights through their Shareable Moments Challenge.
Festival organizers are challenging business owners and operators to be bold, creative and think outside the box to illuminate and entice visitors and community members to snap a photo of their light displays and share it online with family and friends.
“Lights On Stratford really comes into its own when there’s lots of community involvement,” said Destination Stratford executive director Zac Gribble. “If we can get 100 points of light across the community and everybody participating, then this really turns into an incredible experience. The spirit behind the Shareable Moments Challenge is to have our downtown storefronts and locations come to life, and we help fund those (displays) with anywhere from $500 to $5,000 for projects that will be ready for Lights On and stay up for the duration.”
Through the challenge, local business owners and operators, as well as others in the community, have created more than 20 artistic and highly shareable displays for the festival’s first two seasons. Many of these displays remain in place throughout the year and continue to be part of the annual winter lights festival, including the Perth County courthouse Tower of Light, the Bridge to Nowhere light display in Upper Queen’s Park, and a variety of lights displays in downtown store fronts.
“The coolest thing for me to see is when these funded projects last multiple years, and many of them have, which is just amazing, and many of them stay up throughout the year,” Gribble said. “It’s really cool to see that legacy value coming out of Lights On Stratford.”
Full details of the challenge including application eligibility, criteria and guidelines can be found at lightsonstratford.ca/shareablemoments. Applications are due by Sept. 30 at 4 pm
“Stratford has never let us down. The creativity coming from the community in terms of interesting and unique light experiences neve ceases to amaze me, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with,” Gribble said.
With a theme of “Rekindle”, the third annual Lights On Stratford festival will run from Dec. 16, 2022 to Jan. 27, 2023. For more information, visit lightsonstratford.ca.