A free festival of lights that will draw thousands on to the streets of London for its final night on Sunday massively boosted trade during what is usually one of the quietest, coldest and darkest weeks of the year, its organisers have claimed.
The four-day Lumiere London event saw stretches of Oxford Street, the Mall, Piccadilly and Regent Street closed from dusk until 10.30pm so people could view 30 light-based artworks splashed across buildings including Westminster Abbey and glowing installations in Trafalgar, Grosvenor and Leicester squares.
Artichoke, the not-for-profit public art group behind the show, said it is considering repeating it in London and elsewhere. Business owners said trade was up over 10% in some areas and footfall was up over 25% on the same time last year. Restaurateurs and bar owners reported the biggest boosts.
“All the evidence suggest that business is massively up on numbers last year,” said Helen Marriage, director of Artichoke. “There is a very real public desire to see this come back.”
Karen Baines, marketing director at the Heart of London Business Alliance which represents more than 500 businesses in Piccadilly, Leicester Square and St James’s, confirmed the event had boosted business in some areas and said its success would strengthen the argument for more road closures in the capital to stage festivals. “If this is shown to be successful, the intention would be doing it on a wider scale over more streets,” Baines said. “Lumiere has demonstrated we have the ability to close central London streets and still let the city operate.”
The event was billed as “a chance to beat the winter blues and see the city differently” and involved sending waves of shimmering coloured light across London’s gloomy January streets.
Neon green reeds sprouted from a fountain in Leicester Square, an illuminated aquarium was installed in a red phone box on Grosvenor Square and the carvings of Westminster Abbey’s portico were transformed with splashes of vivid fuchsia, egg-yolk yellow and aquamarine light.
Similar events have been staged four times before in Durham where the cathedral and castle provided backdrops for light artists, but the London event was the biggest yet of its kind. “People love the freedom to move about their city in a different way and enjoy the space and looking at their city differently,” said Marriage. “It is amazing the amount of people looking up [at the buildings] for the first time.”
It was also backed by the mayor of London’s office and Westminster city council.
- Lumiere London runs until 10.30pm on Sunday 17 January
