#holidazzle

Beginnings of the Holidazzle

If the Mall of America rouses the sleeping giant of downtown Minneapolis, then its presence will be especially welcome. Nothing like a new kid on the streets to bring out the fighter in a veteran champ.

- Star Tribune Editorial, July 27, 1992

In 1992, the downtown Minneapolis shopping district faced a challenge. How could the city’s business leaders draw holiday shoppers to their downtown stores and away from the brand new Mall of America? The Minneapolis Downtown Council’s answer: Provide a new, exciting reason to venture downtown -- the Holidazzle Parade. 

Holidazzle was a parade unlike anything before seen in Minneapolis. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 1992, a half-hour parade of lights made its way down the Nicollet Mall every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening. Leaving nothing to chance, set designer Jack Barkla and costume designer Jack Edwards consulted with Disney theme park parade staff in California and Florida while creating the Holidazzle’s fairy-tale-themed floats and light-adorned costumes. In addition to nursery rhyme characters like Jack and Jill and Little Miss Muffet, the parade featured local marching bands and choruses among a legion of local volunteers. 

The Downtown Council pulled out all the stops to market the event, including full-page advertisements in the Star Tribune, and an estimated 300,000 spectators shivered along the parade route or peered down from the city’s skyways in that first year. The parade became a mainstay of the Twin Cities’ holiday celebrations, averaging about 400,000 visitors a year in its 22 year run. 

In 2013, the Holidazzle parade made its way down the Nicollet Mall for the final time. The festival continues in new forms, however. Since 2015, Holidazzle has been held Loring Park. The 2018 Holidazzle continues through December 23.

Sometimes we all shine.