What began as a high school acting gig has grown into a role helping to steer one of St. Charles’ most beloved traditions. As the signature events producer for the Greater Saint Charles Convention & Visitors Bureau, Ryan Cooper still steps into character as Jack Frost while overseeing Christmas Traditions and its Halloween counterpart, Legends & Lanterns. Cooper says the joy of the work comes from seeing visitors catch the Christmas spirit year after year, and supporting the performers who keep people coming back.
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Organization: Greater Saint Charles Convention & Visitors Bureau
Title: Signature Events Producer
Age: 36
Hometown: Saint Louis
Education: Fontbonne University class of 2012. Majored in Performing Arts.
Interests / Hobbies: Theatre; I love going to New York to catch shows on Broadway about twice a year. Travel; recent trips to Amsterdam and London have been favorite destinations. Disney (both Land AND World). Anne Frank/Holocaust History; I have volunteered as a guide at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum since 2012.
What motivated you to get involved in this work/community/activity? I first got involved as a performer with the Christmas Traditions festival when I was a junior in high school. (This year marks my 20th season!) I hadn’t spent much time on historic Main Street before then, but I became immediately enchanted, not only by the incredible community the festival created. In 2016, I created Christmas Traditions’ sister Halloween festival, and three years later, took on the task of leading Christmas Traditions itself. It has been incredible to connect with the quarter of a million people who travel to St. Charles to experience the festivals from all around the country (and, in some cases, around the globe) and hear their stories.
What values or principles guide how you show up in this role/community? Behind the scenes of the festivals we have a mantra: “We’ve got your back.” That’s the way we conduct ourselves. These events are so much bigger than any one person. It truly takes an incredible team working together to create the magic that we do on Main Street. We have each other’s backs not only as cast & crew members, but if anyone in our community or festival team falls on hard times, we step up and show up and help them through. What starts as a group of people hired to do a seasonal gig, becomes a family.
What’s the most enjoyable aspect? By far getting to engage with our audience. To see the look of joy and wonder in young peoples’ eyes as they have fun with their favorite characters; or to watch adults have a tear brought to their eye when they hear a carol that is part of a special memory; or the sound of laughter. We see a lot of familiar faces year after year, and it is fun to be a part of peoples’ annual holiday celebrations and watch the kids grow!
Can you briefly share a few standout memories? Last season (2024), Saint Charles Christmas Traditions celebrated its 50th season. As part of the celebration, we were recognized by NBC’s Today Show as the “Merriest Main Street in America” (4 a.m. was a very early time to get up to spread Christmas cheer, but it was so meaningful to get to introduce a large swath of the country to the festival on behalf of the people who have help contribute to the event’s history over half a century. And sometimes there are memories that are more bittersweet. A few years, we had an older couple head to the KATY Depot to see Santa. The gentleman had a terminal illness and was celebrating his last holiday season. He explained that he and his wife had their first date at Christmas Traditions, and they wanted to recreate the photo they took years ago. When we heard that story, it put into perspective why we do what we do.
Can you share an insight about this role that most people don’t know? What we do may seem easy, but planning for each festival season begins in January. It takes a team of about 108 people to put on each Legends & Lanterns and Saint Charles Christmas Traditions season. Everything you see during your visit to one of our events is internally produced, from the collectable character trading cards, to the hundreds of stunning costumes (made by hand by two incredible costume designers).
What’s one key piece of advice you’ve embraced? Always strive to improve. When you have a successful event like Christmas Traditions that has been around for half a century, it’s easy to want to rest on your laurels. But we are constantly looking at how we do things and asking ourselves, how can we make things better not only for our audience but for our cast and crew as well? We don’t get stuck in the “that’s the way it’s always been done” trap.
What’s the greatest challenge? Being an outdoor festival…the weather. We are “all-weather festivals.” We don’t cancel for rain or snow or heat or cold. We realized that there are people from out of state who have planned for months and travelled here to experience these events, and you can rest assured we’ll be here to entertain them.
Where do you find inspiration? History, literature, and folklore. Those are the foundations of both Legends & Lanterns and Saint Charles Christmas Traditions. Being in a 200-year-old historic district, the setting is perfect to help bring characters and programming inspired by the past to life. To put it into perspective, many of the building on South Main Street were standing when Charles Dickens first introduced the world to Ebenezer Scrooge when A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843.
What are your future plans or ambitions? To continue to see Legends & Lanterns and Saint Charles Christmas Traditions thrive and to help introduce an even larger audience to our new holiday “micro festival” Once Upon a Valentine: Stories for the Loved & Loveless, that will take place February 7–8, and take visitors on a fun journey through the holiday of romance with a festival that is half pro-Valentines and half anti-Valentines.
