Overview

Over the years, the Holiday Lighting Festival has grown in popularity and attendance. Unfortunately, it has now grown to a size that it creates safety and logistical challenges. After consulting with event professionals and safety partners (Poudre Fire Authority, Timnath Police, and UC Health First Responders), we've identified the following issues:

• EVENT SPACE - The Holiday Lighting Festival utilizes Main Street from Third to Fifth, and Fourth Street from Main to Kern as our event space, with parking in the dirt lot on Kern Street between Third and Fourth. As it is, the event space is packed; you cannot move throughout the event space comfortably or quickly as one person, let alone as an entire family or with a stroller. There is nowhere for this event to grow or expand, to accommodate the increase in attendance that we continue to see year after year.
  
  
• EVENT PARKING – Since the parking lot is not paved, it could lead to potential logistical and safety problems. Like we saw with 4th of July this past year, unpaved parking lots can very easily turn into an unsafe parking situation where cars get stuck in excess mud. We have no backup parking option in Old Town as surrounding streets and parking lots (Timnath Elementary, CF&G/Beerwerks lot) do not provide sufficient parking for this event.
  
  
• LIGHTING– The lack of both lighting and available lighting infrastructure in Old Town is a major safety concern.
  • Tripping Hazards - For this event, we bring in multiple different kinds of lights and poles, including light towers, balloon lights, and string lights. All of these, along with their cords, bases and tower legs, create significant tripping hazards that worsen as the crowds grow.
  • Lack of Infrastructure - Because there are no streetlights on Fourth Street, we don’t have the infrastructure available to put up string lights across the road, like we do on Main Street. Thus, we have to rely on the temporary lighting, along with its tripping hazards.
    
    
• BUDGET – During the discussion surrounding the 2024 Budget, Council directed staff to develop a comprehensive, annual event program within a $850K budget. Knowing the safety and logistical risks associated with the existing event, staff suggested reimagining our holiday event. Council ultimately decided that the Holiday Lighting Festival will not happen as it has in the past. However, that does not, and never did, mean removing a holiday event. A line item was included in the budget for a new holiday event in 2024.
  
  

What’s Next?

Staff has already reached out to the Old Town businesses that have been a part of the event. We want to better understand what elements of the event were most valuable and treasured.

A community group also administered an onsite survey at the 2023 event to begin the process of engaging the community to help Timnath determine the best way to celebrate the holiday season as a community safely.

Now, we're conducting a broad-based community survey to ask for the community's preference for event alternatives.