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We exist to do more than programme visually stunning festivals. Our work is about people, place, and pride. Across our network partners, light festivals are helping communities reimagine their towns and cities, strengthening connections, nurturing creativity, and creating moments of collective joy – especially in the darker months of the year.
Placemaking isn’t something that happens overnight. It begins with listening and understanding. Across our festivals, communities don’t just visit the art—they help shape it. Artists and light festival producers work directly with residents, schools, youth groups, and community organisations to co-create pieces that feel authentic and reflective of the place. This sense of shared ownership is why our festivals feel locally owned and why audiences return year after year, marking them in calendars as unmissable moments.
Our festivals create space for underrepresented stories to be seen and celebrated. Stitching Light by Emergency Exit Arts was presented at BD: is LIT Bradford, Bridges of Light Worcester and beyond. This textile and light installation explores Bangladeshi women’s migration to the UK through hand-painted and stitched panels, created in collaboration with women whose stories are rarely told. Working with partners including Oitij-Jo and the Migration Museum, the project gathered stories from across Bradford, Leeds, Tower Hamlets, Middlesbrough, Worcester and Salford. The result was an illuminated walk-through structure and immersive soundscape became both artwork and archive – beautiful, moving, and deeply meaningful.
Light Night Wigan worked with local artist Florence and Venture Arts, an award-winning organisation supporting learning-disabled artists, to create Strands – a glowing installation of 3D houses, shifting colours, and a magical soundscape. Developed through workshops with Wigan Youth Zone and Shared Health Oldham, the work explored ideas of home and belonging. Watching families move through the installation – listening, touching, pointing things out to one another—it was clear the artwork resonated with the local community. What began as Florence’s stitched textile concept of ‘home’ became, quite literally, a shared light experience for the whole community. These are placemaking examples at its most powerful: art that doesn’t just decorate a place but honours its community’s people and heritage.
Our network’s light festivals remove many of the barriers that can prevent people from engaging with arts and culture. They are free, outdoors, and don’t require any prior arts knowledge to enjoy. You don’t have to walk into an imposing building, buy a ticket, or feel like you belong to take part – you simply wrap up, step outside and enjoy. In Leeds, 50% of Light Night visitors say they do not regularly attend cultural events; however Light Night’s reach is significant, Leeds alone in 2025 welcomed around 200,000 visitors over just two days. This accessibility matters. It means children, young people, families, older residents, and people from all cultural backgrounds can experience high-quality light art in their own neighbourhoods – often for the first time.
Our festivals also play a vital role in shifting how towns and cities are perceived – by visitors and by residents themselves. Winter can be a challenging time for high streets and town centres, but light festivals bring warmth, energy, and welcome footfall. They help people see their places differently: buildings become canvases, streets become gathering spaces, and familiar corners feel magical again. This renewed pride contributes to long-term reputation building and supports wider regeneration ambitions.
In Barnsley, over 20,000 people attended Barnsley Bright Nights in 2025, its biggest year yet. The impact extended beyond the town centre too, with the community-led mini light festival and parade ‘Glowthorpe’ in Goldthorpe village gaining regional attention, this is how culture and art spreads outwards to the edges of towns and cities.
Outdoor light art does more than entertain. It supports wellbeing by encouraging people to get outside, walk, explore, and connect. Families spend time together. Friends meet after work. Strangers share moments of wonder.
At Lumiere Durham, produced by Artichoke, artworks like Solace at Durham Cathedral Cloister, by artist Amelia Kosminsky, commissioned by Point North, demonstrate the emotional power of light. Composed of hundreds of handmade community lanterns suspended in space, the installation invited quiet reflection during turbulent times—offering comfort, stillness, and hope within a historic place of sanctuary. These moments create space for reflection, reduce isolation, and strengthen social bonds.
Light festivals are catalysts. They attract the involvement of universities, community organisations, local authorities, and businesses. They open doors to new partnerships and investment. In Leeds, Light Night 2025 raised £230,000 in sponsorship from local businesses, with Arts Council England’s support helping to unlock that investment. The University of Leeds also contributes around £60,000 with in-kind support. These relationships strengthen local cultural infrastructure and demonstrate the value placed on light art by civic partners.
Light art has evolved into its own distinctive artistic practice – one that blends visual art, technology, sound, performance, and design. Our emerging talent programme SPARK supports emerging light artists to collaborate, take creative risks, explore new technologies, and work with local communities.
Artists are encouraged by our network to work across artforms, experiment in unusual settings, and present work in new ways – often reaching tens of thousands of people in the process. For many, this becomes a defining step in their artistic development.
My participation in the 2023 SPARK programme directly led to developing my light art installation, ‘Rever,’ which has since been on display at Light Night Wigan and Light Night Leeds. It was the key to opening the door to the industry for me.” Jack Cheesebrough, Lighting and Visual Designer, Outpoint Studio
Established in 2014, our network has helped lead the growth of light festivals across the UK. Our network now represents a powerful community of producers, artists, and organisations sharing skills, knowledge, and best practice. We are building new models of collaboration, training future producers and curators, and creating sustainable pathways for artists. Through the support of Arts Council England and our partners, we are able to champion quality, inclusion, and innovation across the light sector.
“Really valuable to be part of a committed group with whom we can share ideas, good practice, concerns etc. Also useful to get other members feedback about their festival visits, new work etc. The group are incredibly knowledgeable and generous with their time and experience.” Network Members’ Survey Response.
The work of our network proves that light art is far more than a seasonal event; it is vital for social cohesion and a sense of belonging. By transforming the darker months into a season of possibility, our festivals do more than illuminate streets – they illuminate the stories, talents, and shared identity of the people who live there.