O, Holy Night

It was the first Sunday of Advent in 1998. The Swedish winter offered a gray and snowless landscape that year, but I was still excited.

I had just received an invitation to an “astonishing” Christmas event in the city center. As a fond celebrant of Christmas, I immediately envisaged the beautiful Old Town aglow with sparkling Christmas lights. I imagined the sound of jolly choirs singing Christmas carols, candy-adorned Christmas trees, and the scent of cinnamon in hot cocoa bringing warmth into the chilly December air.

The events downtown were indeed astonishing, but for all the wrong reasons. The first attraction was a plastic piste machine, starring free-stylers on skis and a mad host screaming above the loud music blasting from the speakers. The second attraction was a Santa sleigh, featuring a depressed Santa pulled by two equally depressed horses with buckets hanging behind their tails.

If this was an “astonishing” Christmas, bring on the New Year.

My excitement deflated at first. But as I looked down the town square, facing the St. Nicolai Church, I got an idea: What if there was a way to create the Christmas spirit I longed for right there? A spectacular show with celebrities, an orchestra, and a majestic choir singing Christmas carols together with the audience. Paired with magnificent lighting, set designs, and choreography, it had to bring joy!

I pitched my idea to organizations and companies. They looked at me and said: “You’re mad! This is Sweden, in December. It’s cold!”. I pitched it to the local newspaper, too. They told me it was “too pompous”. Fortunately I carried on.

The wonderful thing about a pitch is that it only takes one “yes” to create magic. And in March 2001, I finally got the Yes. And that is how “O, Holy Night” was born. It was Christer Henebäck from Sydkraft (a Swedish energy company now called EoN) who had heard about the mad Englishman. He thought the idea of an outdoor Christmas event in Örebro was excellent and offered to sponsor the event.

I lived and breathed “O Holy Night” from that day on. I booked the artists and choirs, and assembled the beau monde of musicians, choreographers, scenographers, sound mixers and lighting designers for this production. I was planning everything down to the finest detail, while also doing marketing and PR at the same time.

The premiere show attracted 15,000 visitors. The following year the audience was 25,000 and the show was broadcast on national SVT 1 on New Years eve at 8.00 pm.

And so it continued. “O, Holy Night” swiftly became the biggest Christmas event in Sweden. From 2009, TV4 started broadcasting the show, also on Christmas Eve at 8.00 pm. The concert grew more spectacular each year, too. That is how it works when you work with a team of visionary professionals. Our constant question was not if, but how, the next show could triumph over the last one.

O, Holy Night put Örebro in the national spotlight for 15 years, both as a live event and as a TV-production. But the phenomenal results aside: What truly brought me joy was the people of Örebro got to experience Christmas spirit, with majestic choirs, sparkling lights, and the sweet scent of cinnamon and hot cocoa, and of course the amazing sense of warmth and community that comes from standing on a freezing square in the middle of Sweden and singing favorite carols with 25,000 other human beings.

Richard Kennett

Footnote
Richard Kennett created and produced O, Holy Night from its premiere in 2001 until 2015. In 2016, the production was acquired by another company.