Jacksonville may move Festival of Lights to downtown square

The Festival of Lights could leave the Morgan County fairgrounds and move into the Jacksonville downtown square, a change that would put holiday crowds in the middle of Main Street instead of outside town. Mayor Andy Ezard raised the idea at the Jacksonville city council meeting, saying the display could become a free, walk-through attraction that gives downtown a bigger seasonal draw.

Sarah Shellhammer said the fairgrounds version has become expensive to sustain. She put the annual cost there at about $120,000 and said she expects a downtown version could come in at less than $50,000, largely because contractor fees have grown too high. In her view, the fairgrounds arrangement is no longer affordable, making a move into the square more practical as well as more visible.

For downtown merchants, the proposal carries obvious stakes. Jacksonville Main Street director Judy Tighe welcomed the idea, and the organization’s footprint helps explain why. Its district is bounded by Beecher Street, Clay Street, Lafayette Street and Church Street, spans 44 square blocks, and includes more than 300 properties and more than 190 businesses. Jacksonville Main Street also says 107 properties are part of the Downtown National Register Historic District, giving the square a dense concentration of storefronts that could benefit from repeat foot traffic.

The proposal would also change the event itself. At the fairgrounds, the Festival of Lights has been set up for several years as part of Jacksonville’s holiday lineup, but Ezard said the downtown version would be built within the square as a walk-through attraction. That would mark a shift from the familiar fairgrounds setup and place the display closer to restaurants, shops and parking already tied to the city center.

The Morgan County Fair, meanwhile, continues to frame its mission around community, traditions, livestock events, family-friendly activities and local youth talent. Moving the lights away from that setting would not just change venues. It would reassign one of Jacksonville’s most recognizable holiday attractions from a fairgrounds tradition to a downtown economic-development play.

Jacksonville Main Street says it was founded to revitalize downtown as a healthy, vibrant and economically secure center of commerce and social activities, and 2024 marked its 25th anniversary. That long-running push makes the Festival of Lights proposal more than a holiday decoration debate. It is now a test of whether Jacksonville wants its biggest seasonal attraction to serve the fairgrounds, the downtown core, or both.