The Amaze Light Festival, a company that claims to bring cheer to families across the Chicago area during the holidays, has a dark side behind its image, according to several lawsuits. Kim Scerine, who has been running the nonprofit dance troop “On Broadway Dancers” based in Coal City for more than 30 years, is one of the community members left in the wake of Amaze Light Festival’s unpaid debts and lawsuits.
The On Broadway Dancers performed three times a night during the holiday season at the Amaze Light Festival in Tinley Park. Scerine told NBC Chicago that many of her dancers had to give up their winter jobs and leave school early to accommodate the 45-minute drive to the venue. However, a year later, the dance troop is still waiting for Amaze Light Festival, also known as “Artistic Holiday Design LLC” to pay them the $48,000 they say they’re owed as outlined in their contract.
NBC 5 Responds began digging into Artistic Holiday Design LLC and its owner Derek Norwood. Police reports detail a 2021 altercation involving Norwood and an organizer of the 2021 Amaze Light Festival in Rosemont. Body camera footage shows officers responding to the Aloft Hotel and eventually escorting him out. Norwood was later charged with battery and was eventually found not guilty in a bench trial.
In the body camera video, Norwood tells officers, “We own a company that’s putting up the lights. They continue to destroy us every single step of the way. We fight with them.” Soon after the incident, Norwood sued the City of Rosemont for allegedly trying to derail the 2021 light show. Months later, the village of Rosemont filed a countersuit, alleging Norwood’s company failed to fulfill its obligations.
Now, Norwood’s company is engaged in legal battles with almost a dozen other companies in New York, Florida and Illinois, who all allege his company hasn’t paid them for services such as venues, transportation and staffing. The amounts allegedly owed by Norwood’s company add up to millions of dollars.
Among those still waiting to be paid include Odyssey Fun World, the site of last year’s Tinley Park light festival and the Tinley Park Police Department, the latter of whom are owed $80,000. As for the light festival, a lawsuit filed by Odyssey Fun World alleges that Norwood prematurely ended the festival and left behind dozens of large holiday decorations.
“At any given time, during the day, we had anywhere from eight to 15 police officers that were out there, and then probably six to seven traffic control personnel,” Tinley Park village manager Pat Carr said.
This isn’t the first time Norwood has had issues with his business ventures. NBC 5 Responds found bankruptcy filings from 2010 that show Norwood ran another holiday lights business that ended up more than a million dollars in debt to dozens of creditors. In 2021, a letter from First Bank to the village of Rosemont showed that all the money Norwood made from his light festival in Rosemont had been garnished by the bank as part of a “loan agreement.”
Norwood declined to be interviewed, but in a statement, he told us:
“Thank you for contacting us regarding the Amaze Light Festival from last year. We are in an ongoing public lawsuit with Odyssey Fun World, so I am not able to provide a lot of information based on that. What I can say is they have wrongfully held our assets and we are extremely disappointed. Unfortunately, our light festival fell well short of our minimum expectations as far as revenue. This has caused a major financial gap and we have been working on a recovery plan since January and We have and will continue to be transparent with all vendors concerning this. We never projected the event would fail but we take FULL responsibility for it and we are going to honor and prioritize our obligations and debts. You have mentioned On Broadway Dancers are owed money for their work performed at Amaze last year,
