How a One-Night Light Tunnel Became Belgrade's Six-Week Holiday Season

In 2018, Tiffany Maierle talked her husband Mark and a few of his friends into building a light tunnel for the Belgrade Festival of Lights. It went up in the City parking lot on Main Street for festival night and came down the next day. The Belgrade Community Coalition told that story when it named the couple grand marshals of the 2026 Fall Festival.

That tunnel explains why Belgrade's holidays no longer fit into one evening. This year the lights go on Tuesday, November 24, and stay on through January 8. Between those dates come a truck convoy, a full Saturday of market, 5K and Main Street celebration, and a memorial night. Two organizations run those events, and the dates follow a pattern that has held for several years.

Two workarounds from 2020 that stayed

The Festival of Lights started in 1996, founded by the Belgrade Chamber of Commerce. The Belgrade Community Coalition now leads it. Tiffany Maierle joined the Coalition's board eleven years ago and later became its first Director. The Coalition credits her with helping turn the Festival of Lights into a community-wide celebration.

Then came 2020. Social distancing ruled out a crowded festival night, so the one-day tunnel grew into a month-long Belgrade Holiday Light Park at Senior Center Park. The Christmas truck convoy started that same season. Belgrade News called it a pandemic-inspired Plan B to the usual Festival of Lights. The Coalition came up with it, and 68 trucks drove through town that first year.

Both workarounds stuck. The same Belgrade News report covered the convoy and its Truck Village moving to the newly formed Montana Convoy Foundation. In a joint statement, the Coalition said the change would let it refocus on growing its existing events and programs. That split is why Belgrade's holiday weekends now arrive one after another, each with its own organizer.

The dates follow a pattern

Put the last three seasons side by side and the order hardly changes. The dates move back by a day each year as the calendar shifts.

The Coalition's big day lands on the second Saturday of December. The convoy takes the Saturday before it, and Memorial Lights Night comes the Thursday after. The Light Park opened on the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week in 2025, and it does again this year. Once you know the order, you can plan around it the way you plan around the Fall Festival in September.

November 24 starts the season quietly

Flip the Switch Night starts at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, November 24, at the Holiday Light Park in Belgrade Senior Center Park, 92 East Cameron. The Coalition calls it a relaxed, low-key evening built around a countdown to turning on the park. On the same schedule, it sends people to December 12 for "our big holiday celebration."

That is the clearest sign of how far the season has spread out. Switching on the lights was once the main event. Now it starts a six-week display. The Light Park page describes lights along the Senior Center walking path every night through January 8, with a giant ornament for photos and the Memorial Lights Tunnels. The tunnels are the 2018 Main Street idea, now up for the whole season.

With the park open for weeks, you don't have to see it on opening night. A walk on any night in December counts.

The first weekend of December belongs to the trucks

The Montana Convoy Foundation runs a two-night event that is separate from the Coalition's schedule. Truck Village opens at 5 p.m. on Friday, December 4, at Gallatin Speedway. You can walk among the parked trucks and buy food and drinks from food trucks. This year a new Toys for Tots box at the entrance takes new, unwrapped toys. The Speedway's address is 2290 Tubb Road.

The Christmas Convoy leaves the Speedway at 6 p.m. the next evening, Saturday, December 5. The Foundation's convoy page describes close to 100 trucks from businesses across the Gallatin Valley, all decorated in Christmas lights, and calls it the largest truck convoy in Montana. Depending on where you watch, the full line takes 30 to 50 minutes to pass.

The route shapes the size of the event. Belgrade News reported that the loop through town can handle only about 100 rigs before traffic becomes unmanageable. In 2021, Belgrade police asked the convoy to cap registrations at 100. In a past year, Belgrade News described the route as a seven-mile loop. It ran from the Speedway past the airport, through Ryen Glen, along Penwell Bridge and Dry Creek roads and Jackrabbit Lane, past the middle and high schools, and ended at Las Campanas.

The trucks reflect who runs the event. The Foundation's sponsors include AOK Site Works, Carquest Auto Supply, Easton Companies and HJM Construction. Its community work includes scholarships for local graduates going into the trades. The convoy weekend is the valley's construction and hauling businesses putting on their own holiday show, and that is a big reason it has stayed separate from the Coalition's day downtown.

December 12 packs the Coalition's events into one day

The Coalition puts nearly everything else into Saturday, December 12. The day starts on Spooner Road and finishes on Main Street:

• 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Belgrade Holiday Market. More than 100 local vendors fill the Belgrade High School Special Events Center at 220 Spooner Road. The market page lists jewelry, homemade jellies and salsas, chocolates, tea and cocoa bombs, ornaments, candles, soaps, pottery, art and clothing.
• 10 a.m., Jingle Jog 5K. The race is open to runners, walkers and strollers of all ages. Anyone in festive gear is automatically entered in the outfit contest afterward. Last year KBZK reported about 200 runners on the market-day course.
• 11:30 a.m., Get Ugly Christmas Outfit Contest at the Rhino Lounge.
• 5 to 7:30 p.m., Holiday Hoopla. This free, all-ages evening on Main Street includes stops at downtown businesses, local vendors and organizations, and seasonal music.

After the market closes, there are two free hours before Hoopla starts. That makes it easy to drop off packages, warm up, and head downtown as the evening event begins. In 2018, this Saturday was the one festival night when the tunnel stood on Main Street. It now fills a full day, while the tunnels stay lit six blocks away at the Senior Center.

Memorial Lights Night, December 17

The season's last scheduled gathering comes back to the tunnels. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, December 17, the Coalition holds a ceremony at the Holiday Light Park. There is a moment of silence, then everyone walks through the Memorial Lights Tunnels while local choirs sing. Each string of lights bought through the program gets an ornament with a loved one's name.

The Memorial Lights page lists ornaments at $20 for the first year and $10 in later years. They hang in the tunnels from December 17 through January 8. After that night, the park stays open for three more weeks, and January 8 is its last night of the season.

If family coming for the Light Park or the convoy starts asking what Belgrade is like the rest of the year, I'm always glad to share what I know about the town and the Belgrade area. Cheryl Ridgely is here when you'd like a local perspective. Let's Connect.