Winter WonderFest suspends 2023 season

The organizers of Winter WonderFest have announced the holiday festival is suspended for the 2023 season.

They hope to resume operations with a reimagined concept in 2024, according to a news release sent Oct. 24.

Co-founder Peter Briccotto told the Cape Gazette that Winter WonderFest had gotten too big and did not have enough funding to continue this year.

“We’re a mom-and-pop operation with a million-dollar budget,” he said. 

With expenses and a decrease in drive-through traffic in 2022, the organization would be taking too much of a risk to operate this year, he said.

Briccotto said WonderFest is looking for “significant partners” to help get the event back on track in 2024.

Winter WonderFest began in 2016 as a way to spark off-season tourism. It featured a Christmas Village at the Lewes ferry terminal and a drive-through light spectacular at Cape Henlopen State Park.

In 2018, the festival expanded and added a larger ice rink. The rink was leased for the first year. Organizers then raised enough money to buy it outright. “The rink is in storage and we hope to repurpose it next year,” Briccotto said.

WonderFest moved to Hudson Fields in 2021 and became a drive-through light show. That same year, an expanded Schellville moved to a 6-acre parcel behind Tanger Outlets Seaside near Rehoboth Beach.

“Christmas has become big business in Delaware. Corporations and municipalities have invested millions in creating new holiday events. While we are thrilled to see the region become more festive, our operational model began to feel the strain,” said John Snow, cofounder and president of the nonprofit Festival of Cheer, in the news release.

Briccotto mentioned Dover’s Gift of Lights as one event that has expanded in recent years.

WonderFest organizers said it welcomed 340,000 visitors and raised $840,000 for Sussex County charitable organizations in its seven seasons.