|PIC1|Disney recently celebrated their 24th annual Christian music festival, Night of Joy, in Orlando, Florida, at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. The festival has drawn more than 900,000 attendees during its history.

This year, the two-night event, held 8-9 Sept., sold out both evenings. Performing artists included MercyMe, BarlowGirl, Rebecca St. James, Matthew West, Jeremy Camp, David Crowder Band, Building 429, Vicky Beeching, the Afters, Casting Crowns, Hawk Nelson, Smokie Norful, Todd Agnew, Kirk Franklin and tobyMac.

MercyMe frontman Bart Millard has a history with the event that predates his days with the band. "I was a youth minister in Lakeland [Florida] in the early `90s and I used to bring our youth group to Night of Joy," he says. "We saw DCTalk, Carman and Petra. So for us to be playing in front of the Castle is a dream come true."

"It's great for the park to have something like this for churches to be a part of, and it's great for thousands of Christians to show up," Millard adds. "Everybody is starting to realise there are a lot of people in the country who believe there is a God and are Christians, and they buy stuff." Indeed, according to the RIAA, Christian music shipments have increased from 381 million in 1995 to more than 700 million last year. In 2006, while overall music sales are down 5.5 percent year to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan, Christian sales are up 8 percent.

"Disney is a massive corporation, and for them to acknowledge our little industry is not just great promotion," tobyMac says. "It`s sort of like we have their signature, [saying], 'This is a force to be reckoned with. This is legitimate.'"

The Christian music community formally showed its appreciation to Disney in April when the Gospel Music Association honoured Night of Joy with the Lifetime Achievement Award during Gospel Music Week, presented for major contributions to the gospel community for more than 20 years. "It meant a lot to everybody who works on the event," Rob Jordan, associate brand manager for the Magic Kingdom, says of the GMA accolade.

Disney special event manager Carolyn Whitethorn adds, "Anyone can do an event for one year, but what made this event happen for 24 years is the response we have gotten from the community . . . Our management values the relationship we have with the Christian community."

St. James says other companies have followed Disney's lead in embracing Christian music. "I don't know that Rock the Universe would have happened at Universal Studios had Disney not been doing this," she says of Universal's Christian festival, which took place the same weekend as Night of Joy. "I love the example it's setting . . . Who would have thought 25 years ago that something like this would be possible?"