Rising costs put Macon Pops Christmas show at risk

The annual Macon Pops concert that opens the highly anticipated Christmas Light Extravaganza draws thousands of spectators, but the nonprofit organization’s Christmas Spectacular might not return this season.

A staple of Macon’s downtown holiday festivities since 2018, the concert has grown too large for Macon Pops to afford, said co-founder and CEO Steve Moretti.

Despite being free for attendees, the nonprofit must cover expenses ranging from performer and security pay to stage construction.

The concert kicks off a monthlong series of nightly displays showcasing more than a million lights — blanketing five and a half blocks of downtown Macon — synchronized to recorded holiday music by Macon Pops.

“This is one of the most amazing things that any of us have ever done and been a part of,” Moretti said. “But in order to sustain it, we need help from the community.”

The organization has recorded 32 songs over the years. Studio recording costs are another expense, he noted.

“Without the music, it wouldn’t make the lights as unique,” Moretti said.

He added that the fate of this year’s Christmas concert is still “unknown.”

To support the costs, the nonprofit pursues year-round fundraising efforts, soliciting business sponsorships and donations from community members. The group also brings in some revenue from an ongoing concert series.

Costs have increased significantly since the pandemic, Moretti said.

The first concert in 2018 cost half of what it takes to put on the show in 2025. The group only raised $75 from attendees at last year’s Christmas concert, said Lindsey Mote, the organization’s marketing director.

Moretti said that if each of the nearly 40,000 attendees from last year’s event donated just $2, the proceeds would cover the entire cost of the event, which is $75,000.

The opening concert and subsequent nightly light shows garnered a total of 685,000 visitors from Macon and beyond and resulted in a $7.1 million economic impact last year, according to Visit Macon data.

“We don’t see any bit of that revenue,” he said.

Visit Macon donated some money toward the group’s regular season over the last two years, but to again put on the holiday show, Moretti said they would need a sponsor to donate $25,000 for their biggest expense: stage construction.

Putting money earned from the nonprofit’s other concerts into the Christmas concert is not sustainable moving forward, he said. He said diverting that revenue jeopardizes the organization’s future projects. 

“We also don’t want to be put in a position that we can’t carry out the rest of our season because of this,” Mote said. 

Moretti founded the nontraditional symphonic pop organization in 2013 alongside Grammy Award-winning composer and performer Matt Catingub. 

For the first Christmas Light Extravaganza in 2017, Moretti and Catingub collaborated with the organizer behind the lights, Bryan Nichols, to produce and record 12 original arrangements of holiday classics to accompany the lights. The next year, Macon Pops received a grant to help launch the first Christmas concert.

Recording and producing more than 30 songs would cost a quarter of a million dollars if done by a professional company, Moretti said. 

He said Macon Pops has donated an estimated $700,000-750,000 to hosting the holiday concert over the past nine years.  

The Christmas Light Extravaganza could continue without the musical arrangements of Macon Pops, but radio music wouldn’t honor Macon’s rich music history and “continue the next chapter of our music history book,” he said.

“We want the city to do well,” Mote said. “We want downtown to do well. We are happy to be a part of that — we just need help to make it happen.”

Community members can donate to the nonprofit through maconpops.com.