49th Annual Monument Lighting Celebration to Be Held Virtually
Popular Holiday Tradition will air as a holiday television event on WJZ due to COVID limits on large gatherings
Downtown Partnership announced that one of the region’s most popular holiday traditions will be affected by COVID-19. Because of necessary public health precautions and current limits on crowd size, the 49th Annual Monument Lighting will not take place in-person and, instead, will be broadcast as a half-hour holiday special on WJZ, airing Thursday, December 3rd at 7:30 pm EST.
“The holidays are a time to come together which is something we all need this year. Unfortunately, large-scale in-person events aren’t advisable during the pandemic,” said Downtown Partnership of Baltimore President, Shelonda Stokes. “We’re making sure the Holiday Spectacular be is going to be the best screen time any of us will have all year.”
The Monument Lighting takes place annually on the first Thursday in December, drawing tens of thousands of spectators to a holiday village, stage performances, and a fireworks finale. This year, the holiday lights on Baltimore’s Washington Monument will still be lit that same night, but it will happen virtually at the end of a half-hour tv special called, the WJZ Holiday Spectacular – the Downtown Partnership’s 49th Annual Monument Lighting, featuring local celebrities, musical performances, and small groups of socially-distanced people counting down to the lighting.
