Each year hundreds of vendors line Government Street and crowds flock to Mid City to shop, listen to music and mingle at Mid City Merchant’s biggest art festival of the year, White Light Night.
White Light Night will take place on Friday, Nov. 22 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Many Mid City businesses will host artists and vendors on its front lawns and open doors to the public for shopping and dining.
Baton Rouge Music Studios (BRMS) is one of the businesses participating in the festivities. In addition to hosting over 20 vendors on its property, eight different bands made up of BRMS students will perform throughout the night. The studio will also premier an interactive AI video installation that will change in time to the live music.
Doug Gay, owner of Baton Rouge Music Studios, likes to think of the night as one big party.
“You don’t get to really see people in your life all the time who you used to work with, who used to be students, or who used to be parents and clients, and it’s a good excuse for just the masses to come out,” Gay said. “All night I’m just seeing old friends and old faces, and then you’re meeting new people, you know?”
Gay’s own band, Ramble Preamble, will be the headlining band at the studio during the festival. BRMS will also send two student bands to perform at Electric Depot for the evening.
For businesses like the studio, White Light Night provides a lot of visibility in addition to fun. It brings in lots of foot traffic, even from places outside Baton Rouge like Lafayette and New Orleans. Anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 people are expected to attend the festival
“You can’t beat it,” Gay said. “Small businesses like mine don’t have the kind of budget to put these full page ads in 225, and things like that, you know? I have to do a lot of it on my own. We’re there to have a party, but it’s just this incredible, affordable marketing opportunity.”

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White Light Night is put on by Mid City Merchants, a volunteer-based collective of Mid City businesses that work to promote creativity and economic growth in the area. Amber Wroten, president of Mid City Merchants said the event doesn’t just stimulate economic growth. It also promotes a sense of unity among the Mid City businesses.
“It is exciting to see the community come together from one event,” Wroten said. “All of these businesses whether they are competing businesses or not, they are each other’s neighbors, and you can really feel the local love and pride of the event and the community because it’s an event for all.”
White Light Night also provides publicity for smaller artists and creatives who don’t have physical shops in Mid City. These vendors host booths with handmade jewelry, pottery, paintings, desserts and much more. Wroten said the festival plays an imperative role in promoting these small businesses.
“It’s a way for those artists and vendors to get their foot in the door, and a lot of the businesses that are in Mid City now started from pop up events,” Wroten said. “It’s a really great way to just give them a platform to be seen by a larger audience.”
Mimosa Handcrafted is a Mid City jewelry business that got its start as a pop up. Madelin Ellis, owner of Mimosa Handcrafted, highlighted the importance of major festivals like White Light Night in aiding local artists.
“I can’t overstate how important it is to a start up,” Ellis said. “It’s great to have places like art markets and smaller pop ups at a random store on a Saturday, but to have a place where such a huge amount of the community is coming through that would never find you otherwise, you can’t ask for better exposure than that.”
Like many of the other shops that will be open during White Light Night, Mimosa Handcrafted will be dressed to the nines.
“I was channeling as if you went to your grandmother’s house, and she brought out all of her fine crystal and Christmas decorations and tableware,” Ellis said. “If you haven’t been in the last week, I took every single thing off of every shelf and totally redecorated, so it will look completely new. We try to do that every year for White Light Night because you want it to be fresh.”
White Light Night’s spirited celebration of Baton Rouge creativity is a great place to get a head start on Christmas shopping. From art to music to food, there will be something for everyone to enjoy at the festival. The event continues to draw in unique ideas and new customers while supporting a thriving artistic community.
“It never fails,” Ellis said. “People come in who have never been there before. It’s a showcase of the talent that we have here, and it’s always surprising. It’s a really cool, great night.”
Click here for a complete list of businesses participating in White Light Night and map of the event.

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