Wintrust Magnificent Mile Lights Festival

About This Event

The Saturday before Thanksgiving, Michigan Avenue turns into Chicago's biggest single-day holiday kickoff — about a million lights strung across 200 trees up and down the Mag Mile, a family festival lane that opens at 11 AM, then Mickey and Minnie leading a parade down Michigan Avenue at 5:30 PM, capped by fireworks over the river around 7:15. All free, all outdoors, and it's the unofficial start of Chicago's holiday season for a lot of people.

The lights themselves go back further than the festival does. The Greater North Michigan Avenue Association put up a 50-foot Christmas tree with 1,500 lights in Water Tower Park back in 1949 — the actual start of Michigan Avenue's holiday-lighting tradition. The parade as it exists now didn't arrive until 1992, when Disney signed on as a sponsor and Mickey and Minnie became its permanent hosts. 2026 marks the festival's 35th year in that format.

Worth knowing before you go: Michigan Avenue closes to traffic for the parade route hours before it starts, and good sidewalk spots along the route go early — if you want to actually see the parade and not just the lights, plan to stake out a spot well before 5:30. The fireworks over the river afterward are a genuinely separate, quieter viewing experience if the parade crowd isn't your thing.