City Centre Initiative on a hunt for the ‘12 Windows of Christmas’ in Derry

After a short break last year because of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the competition is back with a bang and hopes to light up the city centre and improve it’s overall presentation.

Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Alderman Graham Warke said, “This competition has been hugely successful in encouraging our retailers to showcase their products creatively and to work collectively towards enhancing the overall Christmas shopping experience for locals and visitors to our city.”

Jim Roddy, Chief Executive and City Centre Manager at CCI, said, “Our City Centre businesses always make a great effort to dress their windows and get involved with the competition and each year we see the number of entries becoming more creative. This doesn’t have to be a big-budget window production, sometimes it can be quite elaborate, which is great and other times simplicity epitomises the Christmas spirit.

“While we have three great prizes on offer for the top three windows, this is not really about who wins or loses, it’s about coming together as a city centre community to offer everyone a great shopping experience in our city. We have the opportunity to provide a unique Christmas shopping experience to the public and increase our visitor numbers and that’s why taking part is so important, let’s show everyone our sparkle this Christmas.”

Lorraine Allen, Project Manager at CCI concluded, “What we now want city centre businesses to do is contact us to tell us if they are planning a Christmas window display. We will complete the shortlisting process on Monday 29th November with the ‘Twelve Windows of Christmas’ presented for public voting on Facebook at 5pm on the same day. Votes will be open until 10am on Friday 10th December, with winners being announced the same day. We will have a prize-giving at the Guildhall with the Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District on Monday 13th December.”

The competition is open to all city centre businesses and window displays will be shortlisted to the best 12. The public will then decide on the top three, who will get prizes sponsored by the Maldron Hotel, Foyleside Shopping Centre and the City Hotel.

To entre the competition or to nominate a business, contact Lorraine at CCI by 4pm on Friday, November 26 by phone on 028 7136 0169 or email [email protected].