The Pros and Cons of Starting a Christmas Lighting Business

I wanted to write an article on why I started a Christmas Lighting Company, what has worked for me and what to expect, should you decide to get into the Holiday Lighting Business. Before 2013, which is when I started hanging Christmas lights for customers, I didn’t even know there was much of a market for this kind of thing. However, the market for this specialized niche is huge and has grown exponentially in the last 20 years. You can go from simply making some extra income during the winter months, to making a living doing it, if you have enough crews. However, as with any business it is going to take work, or should I say, a lot of work. Which, is not necessarily a bad thing. Just be aware, it’s not as easy as some Christmas Lighting Franchises make it sound.

My main occupation is honey bee removal and beekeeping which I do 8 months out of the year from March-October. I have removed 1,000s of bee infestations from the Atlanta and the southeast. I also manage anywhere from 30-50 bee hives and harvest around 100 gallons of honey per year. The reason I got into Christmas lighting was for extra income during the winter months when I had virtually no work. Bees are inactive during this time making holiday lighting a great second business to fill in the gaps. I already had a work van, ladders, and outdoor work experience, which are all needed for hanging Christmas lights. I opted to start the business debt free and to grow slow, going from 7 customers to about 60 (2021). This has worked well for me. It is possible to grow much quicker and bigger but this is just how I did it. A friend of mine, who I learned from, has well over 200 clients.

PROS FROM MY PERSPECTIVE:

-Opportunity to be your own boss

-Provides extra income form October-December

-Great for pest control, landscaping, construction, and other companies who have slower work in the winter. Established Christmas lighting companies have work from mid-October through mid-December for hanging lights. Then, 2-3 weeks of work in January taking down lights. Companies with a lot of commercial clients may have work in August and September as well.

-It can be a lot of fun if you enjoy working outdoors and celebrating the Christmas season

-Flexibility, you can work as much or as little as you want. After a few years, most companies have more work than they can get to.

-Requires very little money to start. You can have customers buy and store their own lights starting out (Icy Lights mostly rents lights now). This means you don’t need to invest in buying a ton of lights or need storage space.

-Fairly easy to learn the business

CONS FROM MY PERSPECTIVE:

-It is a short but intense season. Expect to work a lot of hours, 6-7 days a week.

-You will work in all types of weather. We have nice weather in Atlanta, Georgia for the most part. Thankfully, we rarely get snow or ice. We do have occasional times where it will rain for 4-5 days straight. That’s too many jobs to reschedule for another date. So we usually have to work in the rain.

-There is a lot of ladder and roof work. I broke my foot last year and had to have surgery. Not a fun experience. My advice is, take things slow and work smart and with the right equipment and that will help avoid accidents.

-Less family time during the Christmas season. This is probably the hardest part for me. My wife and I both love Christmas so it has been hard with me working so much during our favorite time of the year. You will get about a week before and a week after Christmas where you won’t be doing much with lights, so that does help.

I hope this provided helpful information for anyone considering starting a Christmas lighting business. For me, the pros out way the cons, and I am very glad I took the steps I did to start Icy Lights LLC.