Cleveland’s Playhouse Square center of Winterfest 2015

Today, Nov. 28,  Downtown Cleveland hosts Huntington Bank sponsored Winterfest 2015. The event kicks-off the holiday season with a winter celebration and the lighting of Downtown right in the heart of Cleveland at Playhouse Square. The Downtown Cleveland Alliance is responsible for rolling out all of the Winterfest events, which compile to create a full season’s worth of fun focused on bringing locals and visitors to the downtown area.

Activities held during today’s Winterfest 2015 include experiencing Downtown Cleveland by being a part of many events:

• Riding horse carriage ridesCourtesy of The Downtown Cleveland Alliance
  
• The city lighting
• The tree-lighting ceremony
• Caroling
• Holiday pop-up shop to buy gifts
• The Festival of Trees at Allen Theatre
• A fireworks display

Fest-goers can explore Downtown Cleveland and all of it’s beautiful sights on free horse carriage rides around the town; the ride will take them to one of the other offered activities. The Holiday Pop-up Shop and food trucks are operating from 1:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Courtesy of The Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Winterfest’s attendees can watch the official lighting of Downtown Cleveland hosted by Mark Nolan and Nicole Marcellino from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.. Decorations are all Downtown, and the little ones will get a chance to meet the jolly man in red. The tree lighting ceremony is geared toward bringing Clevelanders together to celebrate the joy of the holidays. The night tops off with a bang, literally…there’s going to be a fireworks display.

In addition to these activities, the Cleveland Public Library hosts some extra events sponsored by Winterfest, such as The Reading Reindeer Junction, and Iceberg Station and many more.

The objective and hope of the event is to build up and escalate Cleveland’s community during the holiday season and to create a feeling of togetherness. Volunteers from International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and students from MC2 STEM High School, two major Cleveland organizations that are involved in Winterfest this year, partnered up to help transform Downtown into a winter wonderland and help emphasize the true meaning and spirit of the holiday season.

For more information on all of the activities we couldn’t possibly list here, follow #thisiscle and #WinterfestCLE on twitter or check out Downtown Cleveland Alliance’s website.