One night, Bryan Nichols turned on “The Great Christmas Light Fight” on ABC and it gave him an idea. If people could make Christmas lights on a house sync to music, why couldn’t he do that for the downtown area? So, he turned to a Christmas lights expo, seeking guidance. The experts told him it would be impossible, but Nichols already had his mind set on pulling it off.
Now, that impossible show covers six and a half blocks of downtown Macon with millions of lights and almost the same number of visitors.
“I owned an audio visual company years ago and we kind of started looking at some different avenues and different things that they had not thought of,” Nichols said.
It took three years for the concept to come to life in 2017 with the initial show spanning two and a half blocks, he said. The next year, when the next block was being renovated, he added in the infrastructure and expanded the show which he has continued to do periodically since then.
This year, he added another block.
“They’re renovating Rosa Parks Square so we’re able to go in and put the infrastructure in while it’s being renovated,” Nichols said. This brings the expansion to cover about six blocks of synchronized lights and music.
Initially, he raised money from several local grants to buy lights and put in the underground power infrastructure.
“And since then, it’s been driven by sponsorship and other businesses that have wanted to actually fund the show,” Nichols said. This is just one of the many ways that this has become a popular event.
The success of first year shocked him.
“I didn’t even advertise, nothing, because I was scared it wouldn’t work. And social media just blew up. And, I mean that year, people came from everywhere with no advertisement,” he said.
Since then, it’s grown significantly. Last year, Visit Macon hired a company to geofence and track the event attendance, Nichols said. They discovered that 685,000 people attended the event, excluding people under 16 and anyone who attended multiple times. Nichols said he believes that if they were to track everyone, they would’ve seen numbers in the millions.
Downtown businesses get to see that impact firsthand.
“Seeing the smiles on all the faces as we become part of the traditions of local and thriving families is our favorite,” Scott Mitchell, owner of Sweet Eleanor’s Divine Desserts, said. “Sweet Eleanor’s,” as locals call it, sits at the heart of the light show. This gives them a front row seat to see how the lights foster community in Macon both through the window and as people come into their shop to embrace the holiday festivities.
“The lights bring an energy to downtown that we just love,” Mitchell said. Anyone who wants to experience this for themselves, can attend the free event any night through Jan. 4, 2026. More information about special events can be found on the website maconchristmaslightextravaganza.com.
