We Are a Small Family Company That Was Born Literally in a Garage

Speech at a meeting in the Parliament of the Czech Republic with the Association of Micro and Small Businesses and Self-Employed Persons, May 2023.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Allow me first to thank you for the invitation to today’s meeting and for the support of the Association of Micro and Small Businesses and Self-Employed Persons.

I would like to give you a brief idea of what we do. It will not be difficult, because from November until Three Kings’ Day we light up towns and villages, shopping centres, trams, buses, boats and even refuse lorries, and most of you will certainly have walked across Old Town Square at least once. Last year, for the first time, we organised the light exhibition Lights Tell Stories (Světla vyprávějí) at Žluté lázně (the Yellow Baths)…

In tenders for shopping centres, of the suppliers on the market, it is we and foreign corporate companies who are invited. Despite their presence in the Czech Republic, we decorate the largest number of entities and places, and at the same time we are establishing ourselves in 13 other countries and gradually deepening our reputation. When we first decorated the tree on Old Town Square, it received, according to Forbes, the award for the most beautiful tree out of 21 trees in the world, and last year the Prague Christmas markets with our decoration placed Prague 5th in the world. Our exhibition at Žluté lázně was visited by more than 100,000 people…

Against strong multinational players and domestic firms, some with subsidies, we have faith that, in a synergy of idea, creativity and craft skill, even an industrial product can, in its design, aspire to go beyond ordinary industrial design and become art. Of course, with respect for the necessary givens, such as architecture, the rules of creation, kindness to nature and so on. We have also confirmed on international markets that it is precisely the manner of design that is decisive. Technologies are a tool, but how successful they are is decided by the idea, by the content.

For this reason, even before Covid, at an exhibition in Frankfurt am Main we registered interest from all over the world, and today we have interesting enquiries from prestigious places in Europe. Unfortunately, we also notice different approaches: whereas abroad towns receive support for tourism or Christmas markets, here it is sometimes the opposite.

Similarly, we would welcome greater support in the area of investment support, especially because of the consequences of previous years, which we bear alone. In our field we set the direction on the market, not only in the Czech Republic, through idea, design and quality of workmanship, but unfortunately the willingness to help is directly proportional to the size of the company.

We are a small family firm that began, quite literally, in a garage, with the desire to light up Prague one day like Paris. In the beginning, all of us in the immediate family helped one another, and the first decoration of Prague came into being rather on the knee, as it were. Later we moved from rented premises into our own, an ancient farmstead not far from Prague, the Vánoční dvůr (Christmas Courtyard) in Dobrovíz; today we own 2 industrial sites with an area of 60,000 m².

A lifelong determination to make the world a friendlier place and to cultivate it by every possible means accompanies us in our business life too. We are therefore glad to meet enlightened politicians in our illuminated towns; it is not something to be taken for granted, but it is hopeful.

Thank you for your attention, and I wish light into your days, not only at Christmas.