Company behind popular lights festival in Mississauga is closing its main show in Quebec

The company behind a popular festival of lights that’s been in Mississauga for just over a year is reportedly closing down its main attraction in Quebec, but the Mississauga show is expected to continue — at least for now.

A brief message to the public on Montreal-based illumi’s website regarding the Laval, Quebec attraction reads “It’s now or never — closing January 7.”

The Mississauga show, illumi–A Dazzling World of Lights, is currently in the midst of its second holiday season run in the city and continues until Jan. 7.

However, it’s expected to reopen on the huge Hurontario Street/Highway 407 site in the city’s north end in spring or summer 2024 for its next seasonal run, as it did earlier this year.

City of Mississauga Ward 5 Coun. Carolyn Parrish, who was heavily involved in bringing the attraction to Canada’s seventh-largest city, told insauga.com today that as far as she knows, the Laval situation will not impact what’s happening with the illumi lights festival in Mississauga.

“They are in negotiations with (Tourism Mississauga) for additional funding, so I doubt it,” Parrish said in a text after being asked if she believed the Mississauga attraction was in danger of shutting down as well.

Parrish added that the Laval situation is also different from that of Mississauga as the Quebec attraction is “at the end of a planned five-year stay.”

Attempts by insauga.com to contact illumi for comment have so far been unsuccessful.

However, CJAD Radio in Montreal has reported that an illumi Laval spokesperson confirmed the attraction is shutting down there, effective Jan. 7.

The lights festival began its Laval run in 2019.

The renowned illumi lights festival has attracted some 400,000 visitors during its stay so far in Mississauga, which began in September 2022, according to Parrish.

Illumi officials said earlier that the Mississauga festival, set up on a site equal in size to 10 football fields, has once again transformed “into a winter wonderland this holiday season, inviting guests of all ages along for a journey through 14 magical universes at the largest light, sound and multimedia show in the world.”

Featuring more than 20 million LED lights, the attraction welcomes people of all ages — and their dogs on a few select nights — to embark on “an adventure through a 600,000-square-foot site (complete with) thousands of light structures throughout the nocturnal journey, all while listening to classic holiday tunes.”

Back again this year, organizers say, is the 154-foot-tall illumi Tree of Lights, said to be “the tallest tree of lights in the world,” almost twice the size of the real Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City.

More than 176,000 LEDs light up the structure, officials say.

An illumi spokesperson said earlier this year that the company is working closely with the City of Mississauga to keep the attraction in town “potentially until 2026-27.”

Scheduled to come to Mississauga on several occasions since late 2021, the illumi festival of lights finally opened in the city on Sept. 14, 2022.

Visit the illumi website for tickets and more information.