Winter street festival/market

Idea:

I travelled to Norway in December a few years ago and the cities of Stavanger and Oslo have fantastic winter activities in their downtown in evenings and weekends: it's an outdoor festival with tents for shelter and wood or gas fireplaces for heating. People are able to roast marshmallows and have hot chocolate or non alcoholic hot cider and browse a winter market. Some even have a small playground, crafts for kids, and a beer or mulled wine garden. It's a wonderful way to make long, dark nights more bright and cheery, while building community. Something like that in the winter to fill the hole of the winter shutdown of the Garrison night market would be a great way to improve community and the experience for folks in the winter, and it would animate the downtown which can get a bit grim and lifeless in the winter.

Staff Feedback:
Yes to ALL this! Winter markets can be wonderful community-building events and we agree that they provide bright spots during what can be a pretty tough season for many of us! We passed your idea on to our staff at Tourism and they love it. They suggest it could be part of Fredericton's annual FROSTival once the revitalization of Officers’ Square is complete. Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us!