Winter Festival !

Winter Festival is a celebration of Lights, Music, and the Arts. It is an event that held for over a three week period from mid-November to early December in Tallahassee, Florida, United States.

It was the fall of 1986, and the City of Tallahassee had just purchased new outdoor lights and decorations for the upcoming winter holiday season.

A small group of local citizens banded together to organize a small, intimate holiday community event, to show off the new decorations. And thus, the first Winter Festival was staged, with all of one entertainment stage, the brief lighting ceremony and “Santa’s Alleyway” on the north side of City Hall.

Barely 6,000 hardy visitors braved bitter cold temperatures on the first Friday in December that year, but enough enthusiasm was created to turn the event into an annual celebration.

Over those first several years, the Winter Festival grew substantially, adding visitor-friendly elements including the Nighttime Holiday Parade, Santa’s Enchanted Forest, a food court, more live entertainment stages, fine arts competitions and, the always-popular Jingle Bell Run. (Winter Festival Media Guide 2009)

The Winter Festival, A Celebration of Lights, Music & the Arts is honored by the Southeast Tourism Society as one of the top 20 events in the southeastern region of the United States.