There’s a Norm Macdonald joke about a moth that ends with the punchline: because the lights were on.

One could apply that jocularity to Centennial Square and the foot traffic the area received over the Christmas season.

According to the Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) more than 80K people took in the Lights of Wonder, the most ever for the annual yuletide illumination that began in 2019. But the real added value to the DVBA is it looks like many stayed downtown to do some shopping.

“All indications so far is [business] was not just really strong but surprisingly strong, given what that narrative was,” DVBA CEO Jeff Bray tells Capital Daily.

“Even we were surprised with the kind of feedback we got from businesses,” he said. “December started slow and really, just went nuts—both pre-Christmas and certainly boxing week,” he said.

Bray says the Nov. narrative was that families planned to stick tightly to budgets and to Ebenezer their way through the shopping season but the DVBA says many businesses more than held their own against a growing tide of online competition.

“It may well have been that people might have spent less but they were even more purposeful to shop local than they might have been a year ago in terms of ‘do I go into a local store, versus an Amazon purchase?’” He says. “Who knows, but definitely very, very strong.”

Lights show scheduling adjustment worked

Centennial Square was packed New Year’s Eve with an estimated 4K visitors taking in the visual display which was open until midnight and the turnover to the new year.

The DVBA believes starting the Lights of Wonder earlier this year, on Dec. 1, along with its DVBA gift card and free parking promotions made the Christmas buying season a winner.

“I’m very comfortable saying it greatly exceeded our expectations given the dialogue in the fall around the impacts of inflation,” Bray said.

The DVBA says some of its 1,500 members report customers using cash and debit right through the Christmas season—an indication people were sticking to their budgets and not blowing up their credit cards.