Yes and no.

Commencement of Festivities does nothing to prevent combat damage, since that damage is being dealt directly to the planeswalker and planeswalkers are not players.

However, Commencement can (for the next couple weeks) prevent damage to Planeswalkers in a roundabout way if that damage is happening from noncombat sources that do not directly damage them.

When you say "Bolt Gideon", what you're actually saying is a shortcut for "Bolt you, then as it resolves redirect the damage to Gideon" because opponents can redirect noncombat damage they would deal to you to a planeswalker you control instead.

When this happens for with Commencement, there are two different replacement effects to be sorted out - one to redirect to the planeswalker and one to deal zero damage to a player. The player who is being dealt the damage gets to choose the order in which they're applied.

So you would first apply the "deals no damage" replacement effect so that when you try to apply the second replacement effect to redirect the damage, there is nothing to redirect so Gideon takes no damage.

This is all a convoluted workaround invented when Planeswalkers were introduced ten years ago. When Dominaria comes out, they will get rid of the redirection rule altogether and the answer to the question "Does Commencement of Festivities prevent damage to planeswalkers" will be an unamiguous "NO".