Light Up the Quad Cities Holiday Lights Contest: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is Light Up the Quad Cities and who runs it?

Light Up the Quad Cities is a December holiday lights contest for the Quad Cities market: residents deck out their homes and yards, the stations collect photos of the displays, and the public votes for a favorite. The organizer is 97X / B100 Quad Cities, the Townsquare Media station group whose studios sit on North Brady Street in Davenport, Iowa, alongside co-owned outlets KJOC, KBEA-FM and KIIK-FM. Campaign coverage carries the iRock 93.5 and US 104.9 brands as well, which matters because the vote is spread across the group's station sites.

Where the ballot lives

The vertical is best-of recognition, kin to the newspaper and business-journal polls elsewhere in Iowa, but the subject here is private holiday decorating rather than restaurants or professional services. The ballot for the 2025 cycle sits at irock935.com/lightup-quad-cities-vote-2025/, published by the stations themselves rather than a third-party polling service, so the page carries the stations' own branding, navigation and promotions around the contest.

When does Light Up the Quad Cities voting open and close?

The 2025 cycle had a collection stage and a voting stage. First came the photos: B100's own campaign page asked residents to share pictures of their most creative, beautiful and breathtaking holiday displays, with that appeal running until December 13. Voting then opened on December 15 and ran through December 21 at midnight, a stretch in which anyone could back a favorite display.

Both 2025 and 2026 are confirmed editions, which makes this an annual December fixture on the stations' calendar, with the next cycle expected in 2027. What the stations have not printed is the shape of later cycles: the 2026 ballot's own start and finish days were not posted, no announcement date for the winning household appears beside the window, and no prize is named on either station page. Beyond the printed voting window, no round-by-round schedule for this promotion exists anywhere public; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Because the whole campaign compresses into early December, preparation matters: a household that wants support lined up needs its display photographed and its voters alerted before December 15, since the collection stage shuts on December 13.

How do you vote for a display in Light Up the Quad Cities?

Voting is deliberately simple. A supporter opens the ballot page on irock935.com, browses the photos of entered displays, chooses a favorite and submits the vote. The contest spans all 4 Townsquare Media Quad Cities radio station pages, and the page tells supporters outright that they can vote on all 4, so a single display can collect backing from every brand's audience.

The clearest printed rule attached to this campaign comes from the station's own holiday lights coverage: one vote per device per day. That makes the device, not the person, the unit of support, so a household with a laptop, a tablet and phones can send a vote from each in a single evening and return the next day to do it again. Nothing on the Light Up the Quad Cities page asks a visitor to register, log in or verify an email address before voting.

Phones and the daily return

Mobile browsers handle the page normally: it is an ordinary website served by iRock 93.5, showing the same displays and the same vote control as a desktop. Anyone who misses the December 21 midnight cutoff simply waits for the following December, since the stations place the contest in that month alone.

How does this holiday ballot compare with other Iowa contests?

Iowa's public-vote landscape is crowded, and this ballot occupies a niche its neighbours do not. The Best of Des Moines ballot run by CITYVIEW and the Business Record's Best of Des Moines are broad reader surveys; the Gazette's Best of Cedar Rapids and Cedar Rapids CommunityVotes serve the eastern part of the state; the Best of the Corridor covers the corridor business community; and the AHBA Parade of Homes lets the public pick favorite new homes around Ames.

Where the December ballot differs

Light Up the Quad Cities stands apart in three ways. Its subject is seasonal decorating rather than commerce, so nominees are households rather than companies. Its window is a single tight December stretch rather than a months-long survey season. And its promoter is a radio group, meaning promotion rides on air and on station social channels rather than through a newsroom. For a Quad Cities supporter, that combination makes the December ballot the natural place to rally neighbours around a display, while the statewide best-of ballots reward businesses with year-round customer bases.

Can supporters strengthen a display's chances in Light Up the Quad Cities?

A display's prospects rest almost entirely on organized daily participation. With the printed cap set per device per day, the dependable play is a reminder routine: a message each morning of the window asking everyone in the household to open the ballot and back the entry, repeated every day through December 21. Sharing the ballot link with coworkers, congregation members and neighbourhood chats extends the same routine beyond the front door. The stations have printed no policy on outside help for this campaign, so anything beyond personal outreach rests on general practice rather than a published rule. Readers weighing broader tactics can begin with how to get more votes online, and paid support services for award-style ballots are described on the award votes page.