Southside Holiday Market & Lights Fest
It's the most wonderful time of the year! In 2025, New Frontier Ventures Community Impact Foundation, 501(c)3 nonprofit urban and community development corporation is spreading the holiday cheer and joy and creating an immersive and exciting holiday experience on the southside of Chicago.
Coming to Chicago's historic Washington Park, the inaugural Southside Holiday Market and Lights Fest will feature hundreds of local food, handmade craft and artisan, and boutique vendors, and a spectacular walking lights festival with four themed holiday hubs good for pictures and interactive experiences. At the heart of the experience will be our Holiday Hall, an indoor heated hall featuring more vendors, seating for dining and connecting, and live entertainment.
Our vision is to spread holiday cheer and joy throughout Chicago, creating a special holiday event on the southside to highlight local businesses, and give families and residents an exciting holiday activity to enjoy! Whether you are looking for the perfect holiday gifts, grabbing some delicious food from one of our vendors, warming up in Holiday Hall over a round of holiday specialty drinks and entertainment with friends, or walking along our immersive lights festival path and enjoying one of our four holiday hubs, this will easily become a timeless holiday tradition your family will look forward to every year!
Market & Lights Festival Highlights:
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Holiday Hall (Indoor seating and vendors with live entertainment)
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4 Holiday Hubs (Elf's Lane, Childhood Lane, Snowflake Lane, & Santa's Circle)
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Hundreds of Food, Artisan, Handmade Crafts, and Boutique Vendors
Sponsorship Opportunities
Our vision is to spread holiday cheer and joy throughout Chicago, creating a special holiday event on the southside to highlight local businesses, and give families and residents an exciting holiday activity to enjoy! To do this, we believe that we need a collective of sponsors who are committed to our vision and are interested in investing in making this a memorable experience. We have four giving levels: Visionary, Innovator, Pioneer, & Impact sponsorship levels.
An additional benefit will include each level of sponsorship receiving a tree in the Spirit of the Tree Showcase. Each level will have a different size that corresponds with their level of sponsorship.
Visionary- 6 ft.
Innovator- 8 ft.
Pioneer- 10 ft.
Impact- 12 ft.
Spirit of the Trees Showcase & Contest
While we know many organizations and groups might not have a vendor booth experience but are still interested in helping spread the holiday cheer and joy as part of the fest, we are introducing our Holiday Market and Wonderland Lights Fest, Spirit of the Trees Showcase & Contest!
The Spirit of the Trees Showcase will be along the walking Wonderland Lights display path where guests can enjoy creatively decorated, sponsored Christmas trees ranging from 6 ft.- to 12ft. Each group that opts to purchase a tree will be allowed time during the setup for the festival to decorate their tree as they wish to be judged as part of the Spirit of the Trees contest.
Those who purchase trees for the display will have their tree and organization or group highlighted with an informational plaque featuring a QR code taking guests to their organization's website and work. Following the close of the market and lights fest, all trees will be donated and delivered to sites as identified by the sponsors for the display during the remainder of the holiday season.
Groups and businesses who sign up for one of the event sponsorship levels will get a tree included in their sponsorship.
CALLING ALL VENDORS
The inaugural 2025 Holiday Market and Lights Fest will not be as magical and exciting without the presence and participation of local vendors. Artisans, Food vendors, Handmade crafts businesses, local artists and boutiques, and food trucks, we are calling to you to join us for our first Holiday Market and Lights Fest!
With a goal and expectation to reach more than 10,000 attendees over the course of our three-day weekend market and lights fest, we invite you to join us allowing our guests to support your business during the holiday season!
We have three options available. Our Holiday Hall opportunity will feature an indoor vendor opportunity, which will be a heated indoor experience featuring live entertainment and seating. The Outdoor opportunity will be vendor booths set along the Lights festival path varying in different sizes. The Food Truck opportunity will be an option for food vendors to bring their have their food trucks to operate as participants rather than securing one of our traditional booths. Click below to register and learn more!
