An interactive holiday experience with lights and animatronic bears geared toward families and children is coming to Stamford Town Center.
The Holiday Wish
Nov. 11 – Dec 24, 2022
Thurs-Fri: 2-7 p.m. Sat-Sun: 10 a.m-7 p.m.
Stamford Town Center / 5th Floor Above Barnes & Noble
Indoor Holiday Experience with timed entry
The Holiday Wish, is an interactive, light-filled event made to entertain and inspire every member of the family. The enchanting design and illumination transport guests with a wonder-filled immersive experience. Our luminous holiday feature areas beckon everyone to follow the magic of their wishes. Even more, this journey puts children on a quest to rekindle their love of the holidays by doing one thing: believing.
Ilario Altamura, the co-founder of live events production company Parachute Concerts, partnered with LUMAGICA, an international designer of holiday light exhibits, to create “Holiday Wish: Follow the Magic,” is open now through Dec. 24.
Families will meander through rooms with different immersive settings and have plenty of opportunities to take photos, Altamura said on a tour Wednesday of the 20,000 square-foot space, which is still in the process of being built.
“The whole goal of this is to leave families … with a bunch of photos, a smile on their face, ready for the holidays,” he said.
Families can buy tickets online by visiting theholidaywish.com. The cost of a ticket for a child starts at $17.50, and the cost for an adult starts at $22.50, excluding service fees. Children younger than 2 years old will be able to attend for free. If available, tickets will also be sold in person.
The exhibit is based on a story: Santa Clause’s elves are experiencing a “big creative block, and they need help from the children to inspire them in building Santa’s gifts,” Altamura said.
At the start of the journey, kids will be able to drop off their letters to Santa in a mailbox. They then will visit the elves’ quarters and reindeers’ stables followed by a candy-themed room filled with bright colors.
After that, they will head through a twinkling forest and then a land “frozen in time” with 6-foot-tall animatronic polar bears and illuminated wolf and penguin figures. Altamura said a 30-foot tunnel with lights and hanging ornaments will lead families to the grand finale: the North Pole, which includes Santa’s sleigh and a team of animatronic elves.
But the route doesn’t stop there. In the next room, children can toss foam snowballs at snowmen projected onto a wall in a simulated snowball fight. Altamura, who has children ages 4 and 7, said he suspects the room will be “probably the most fun for the kids.”
Finally, families will be able to buy candy, ornaments, Christmas trees, and mementos at a gift shop near the exit. They will also have the option to pay for a photo with Santa Claus in the mall’s grand court.
Altamura said the plans for Holiday Wish came after Stamford Town Center contacted his company about bringing events to the mall. One of the open areas that was available was the space an H&M store had occupied for more than a decade until it closed at the start of 2020.
“Immediately, I started thinking … ‘How can you reconfigure a retail space? And what can we do with it?'” Altamura said. “I knew, being in the live events business, the best way to drive people back into the mall (is) with special events.”
Altamura said he visited the mall last year when Santa was in the grand court, and as a Stamford native, it brought him back to his childhood.
“Getting that feeling back gave me the inspiration to create something like this here at the mall,” he said.
