MIDDLETOWN, OHIO — Every year, bright, colorful lights turn Middletown into a destination for families looking to drive through one of the biggest holiday displays in the region, Light Up Middletown. Once they're through though, they seem to keep driving, with downtown business owners disappointed the annual event doesn’t drive traffic downtown.
This year, a few locals and business owners decided to take matters into their own hands, adding a downtown event they hope matches Light Up Middletown’s draw. After Thanksgiving, they’ll debut the city’s first Holiday Whopla.
It started at a Christmas dinner at Avinne Kiser’s house last year.
Over the meal, she and John Ferrando, owner of Hot Fusion Glass Studio in downtown Middletown started dreaming up a way to spread the wealth and excitement Light Up Middletown brings to the region every year.
“I wanted it to be unique. You know like something that would draw us that would be different than Cincinnati has, or Liberty Center,” she said. “We wanted something that would bring you down.”
Their plan was an indoor and outdoor holiday display across downtown with lights, painted windows, hot chocolate booth, and in the middle of it all, an ice rink at Swallen’s Park.
“This is a huge place where those visitors that are coming to Light Up Middletown can enjoy an experience,” Kiser said.
The Ferrando immediately got on board, and the two started planning, fundraising and looking for other potential partners.
“It had community written all over it from the start,” Ferrando said.
The pair and other members of the Holiday Whopla committee raised about $300,000 through grants and donations to rent a rink and what they hope will be a series of large Instagram-worthy light displays, that they spent much of November installing around downtown.
“I want people on Facebook and Instagram posting pictures, ‘Look where I am, Middletown, Ohio!’” Kiser said.
Locals also donated their talents and storefronts. Students from area high schools came out to paint winter scenes on windows and a local woodworker, Tom Pressler made a life-size standup display of characters from "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," by Dr. Suess.
“They look incredible,” Kiser said. “That’s part of this community building we wanted this event to be.”
Her hope is that all of these efforts bring in a portion of those 100,000 annual visitors from Light up Middletown and a 25 to 35 percent boost in revenue for downtown businesses.
The city has spent decades working to make downtown Middletown a vibrant economic center for the city. From more than a dozen different master plans to a mall covering the city center. Most recently, the city has considered a mixed-use entertainment complex and tourist attraction called Hollywoodland, but so far the project has failed to draw much public support.
There’s little consensus about the best way to spark revitalization in the downtown corridor, but at the Pendelton Art Center, just across the street from all of the Holiday Whopla attractions, local artists and crafters are optimistic this event could shine a positive light on their hometown.
“We’re a good small town that loves each other and loves people,” Rochelle Zecker, an artist at the Studio of Broken Things, said.
Zecker said she joined the studio and started selling her handmade knits and jewelry at the downtown studio in April because she wanted to be a part of a growing arts movement at the city center, but she said she’s been disappointed in a slow pandemic recovery for hers and other small businesses in Middletown.
“I would love to have more people come in and experience art,” she said.
Zecker thinks part of the problem is a stigma about downtown Middletown.
In 2008, the city was named one of Forbes' fastest dying towns due to rising poverty rates and a low percentage of locals with a post-secondary education. In recent pop culture, Middletown plays a prominent but unflattering role in U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance’s memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," adapted to film in 2020.
“It is not Hillbilly Elegy,” Zecker said. “There’s a lot of potential downtown.”
She said she’s excited to see what Holiday Whopla will bring and plans to join other artists from the Pendelton Art Center in setting up a series of craft booths to compliment the event.
“We’ll have a station set up where they can write letters to Santa,” Zecker said.
Holiday Whopla debuts on Black Friday, Nov. 26 to coincide with the start of Light up Middletown and will continue through Jan. 3.
If the event is a success, Kiser hopes to make it a new annual tradition for Middletown.
“Something to do for our city and for our visitors,” she said.