Santa, AKA Jefferey Bigger, greets an excited kid outside of Lakewood’s Camp Christmas. Nov. 16, 2022.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Denver residents who want to visit Camp Christmas will have a very long drive this year.
The Denver Center for the Performing Arts has taken celebrated Colorado artist Lonnie Hanzon’s immersive art spectacular all the way to Dallas, Texas, where it’s being billed as the “newest and quirkiest holiday tradition.”
Rude!
“Why did Camp Christmas move to Dallas this year?” Denverite reader S.R. asked. “Is it ever returning to Denver?”
We called Hanzon to find out.
“We’ve gotta spread the love,” Hanzon said of the Camp Christmas move.
Hanzon established Camp Christmas at Aurora’s Stanley Marketplace In 2019. Working with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, he merged immersive art with holiday festivities. The project kept going during the pandemic with a mail-delivery program and eventually returned in person.
Since its founding, Camp Christmas has sold a quarter-million tickets — equal to a third of the population of Denver — at its two metro locations: Stanley Marketplace and Heritage Lakewood in Belmar Park.
Fans loved the project. And some locals made it an annual tradition.
But Hanzon was ready to share his Christmas mayhem with a new city.
“It was time we take it on the road,” he said.
Moving Camp Christmas is no easy feat.
DCPA is still producing the event — even in Texas. This year, a Colorado tent company fabricated 11 massive camping-style tents to host the festivities. It will be called “HilltopSecurities Camp Christmas,” sponsored by the Dallas-based financial company.
Hanzon and crew loaded eight 53-foot trucks to cart everything south. He rented two Airbnbs for his crew. And he’s been setting up for the Dallas premiere since late October.
Camp Christmas will open on Monday, Nov. 22, in Annette Strauss Square, outside the AT&T Performing Arts Center. The installation will run through Dec. 29, with tickets starting at $30.
“It’s about 20,000 square feet of outdoor space on an astroturf amphitheater and in between skyscrapers,” Hanzon said. “It’s really a trip.”
Lonnie Hanzon is an original immersive artist
Over the years, visitors enjoyed a historic lightbulb tree with lightbulbs dating back 123 years. There was a Blucifer stabbed with a candy cane. And a tree made from more than 500 pounds of sugar.
Logophiles enjoyed “pun trees” where they could solve wordplay problems hanging from Christmas trees.
“We had gone from 10 pun trees to 20 to 30,” Hazon said. “We were at 36 pun trees. I mean, how many more puns could we come up with, right?”
Now 65, Hanzon was a force in the immersive arts scene long before Meow Wolf brought it to a commercial audience. He’s had installations at the Museum of Outdoor Arts, Denver Pride, the Wizard’s Chest’s entryway, and the Houston Zoo. Camp Christmas has become one of his best-known projects.
He plans to come back to Colorado in January and cook up something new for the city.
But what about Camp Christmas?
“If I get missed enough,” Hanzon said, “then we’ll come back.”
Correction, Nov. 13, 2024: The event is taking place at the AT&T Performing Arts Center, not the AT&T Center. We regret the error.
