- Lumiere London will take place from 18-21 January 2018
- More than 40 installations will light up London’s streets, buildings and public spaces, bringing millions of visitors to the city
- Mayor encourages people from London, across the UK and the world to discover the city in a new light
- Businesses and brands invited to take advantage of sponsorship opportunities to help make London shine
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has revealed the dates for Lumiere London 2018 – the capital’s largest night-time festival. More than 40 UK and international artists will transform the city and offer new perspectives on the capital’s iconic architecture, streets and landmarks.
Lumiere London 2018 will take place over four nights between 18 and 21 January 2018. Building on the phenomenal success of Lumiere London 2016, festival destinations will include King’s Cross, London’s West End (including Carnaby, Regent Street, Oxford Circus, Leicester Square, Mayfair, Piccadilly, St James’s, Fitzrovia and Westminster). Works will be exhibited both north and south of the River Thames, with Covent Garden, Victoria, South Bank and Waterloo added as new destinations for 2018.
Communities from across the capital will be able to take part in the festival. Residents of outer London boroughs will be invited to take part through schools and participation projects and volunteering schemes, which will ensure all Londoners can benefit from this extraordinary cultural event.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Lumiere London 2018 will be bigger, brighter and bolder than ever before – with even more areas of our city involved and even more people expected to visit this incredible festival.
“I am particularly pleased that this year we are organising community projects in outer London boroughs to ensure that as many Londoners as possible can get involved with this world-class event.
“Lumiere London 2018 shows that London is open to people from across the world and open to creativity and ideas, and open for business. I look forward to welcoming millions of visitors to the capital and building on the success of 2016’s showpiece.
“There’s no better way to banish the January blues – so get ready to take to the streets and marvel at a dazzling array of incredible artwork and installations.”
1.3 million visitors enjoyed Lumiere London in 2016, at a time when the city is usually quiet, following the Christmas break. The groundbreaking event featured 30 installations by UK and international artists in landmark locations. Visitors to the event spent £22m and the festival was the winner of Best Debut and Best Outdoor Event of the Year at the Event Awards.
Lumiere London 2018 is commissioned by the Mayor of London and programmed and produced by Artichoke, with major support from King’s Cross and the West End Partnership. Additional support will be provided by a host of partners and funders including The Fitzrovia Partnership, South Bank and Waterloo BIDs and London & Partners.
Helen Marriage, Artichoke CEO and Lumiere London Artistic Director, said: “In January 2016, more than a million people came out on some of the coldest nights of the year to enjoy this great world city as it had never been seen before.
“I’m thrilled that the Mayor has commissioned Artichoke to programme and produce the second edition of Lumiere London. The festival is the biggest night-time event in London and will transform the capital into a giant art exhibition without walls. As a global showcase for the capital, it is an excellent sponsorship opportunity that every business and brand should consider.
“Lumiere London offers a fantastic platform for UK and international artists to reach the widest possible audiences and there are no financial barriers to attendance. Everyone is invited.”
Further details about Lumiere London 2018 are available at: www.visitlondon.com/lumiere. More information about the festival and artists involved will be announced in coming months.
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Notes to editors
About Lumiere
Lumiere was created by Artichoke in Durham in 2009, and took place again in 2011, 2013 and 2015, commissioned by Durham County Council. In 2013, Artichoke produced Lumiere in Derry~Londonderry UK City of Culture. In January 2016, the company staged the first Lumiere London, supported by the Mayor of London, attracting audiences of over 1 million over four nights. http://www.lumiere-festival.com
About Artichoke
Producers of extraordinary live events, Artichoke is one of the country’s leading creative companies and is a registered charity, funded by Arts Council England.
At Artichoke, we use art to undermine the mundane and disrupt the everyday, and create a new kind of world that we’d all like to live in.
Our previous projects include Royal de Luxe’s The Sultan’s Elephant, which brought an estimated one million people onto the streets of London in 2006; La Machine’s 50-foot high mechanical spider for Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations in 2008; Antony Gormley’s One & Other 100-day-long invasion of the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London in 2009; and Deborah Warner’s commission for the London 2012 Festival with Fiona Shaw, Peace Camp, a nationwide celebration of landscape and poetry, which took place across eight separate sites around the UK; Temple by David Best in Derry~Londonderry, attended by more than 75,000 people; and London’s Burning, a festival to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London in September 2016. Artichoke creates and produces Lumiere, the UK’s largest light festival, which has been staged in Durham every two years since 2009; in Derry~Londonderry in Northern Ireland as part of the celebrations for City of Culture 2013, and in London for the first time in January 2016. www.artichoke.uk.com
Mayor of London
The Mayor of London supports a range of cultural events and activities throughout the year. For more information, go to www.london.gov.uk/culture, or email [email protected]
MAJOR PARTNERS
King’s Cross
King’s Cross is London's new creative quarter, home to 67 acres of inspiring businesses and outstanding architecture, destination restaurants and a vibrant cultural scene. The area’s industrial past has inspired the 50 new and repurposed buildings; the public spaces between them are a mix of parks, streets, squares, and gardens, with Granary Square and its fountains as a heart.
Already known as a foodie hotspot, King’s Cross is now establishing itself as a retail destination. Nike and Waitrose are already open, with more retailers to be announced at Stable Street and King’s Boulevard in 2017. The retail vision will complete in late 2018 when Coal Drops Yard, London’s newest shopping street, opens in a pair of redesigned Victorian coal buildings, creating 100,000 sq ft of boutiques, shops, bars and restaurants in the centre of King's Cross.
London’s West End – working with the West End Partnership
London’s most visited destination – London’s West End attracts more than 200 million visitors a year from across the globe. The area offers a globally unique and unrivalled mix of shopping, culture, food and entertainment and is home to many vibrant neighbourhoods. The West End is home to world famous landmarks from Piccadilly Lights and Trafalgar Square; the iconic shopping streets of Oxford Street, Bond Street, Regent Street and Carnaby Street; cultural and entertainment hotspots of Leicester Square, Piccadilly and Shaftsbury Avenue and world class hotels and a phenomenal global dining experiences across Mayfair, Chinatown and St James’s. Key promotional partners for the West End include Westminster City Council, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, Heart of London Business Alliance, New West End Company, Regent Street Association, Shaftesbury plc, Fitzrovia BID and The Crown Estate.
About London & Partners and visitlondon.com
Visitlondon.com is the official visitor guide to London and is run by London & Partners, the Mayor of London’s official promotional agency. London & Partners’ purpose is to support the Mayor’s priorities by promoting London internationally, as the best city in the world in which to invest, work, study and visit. It does this by devising creative ways to promote London and to amplify the Mayor’s messages, priorities and campaigns to engage international audiences. Its mission is to tell London’s story brilliantly to an international audience. London & Partners is a not-for-profit public private partnership, funded by the Mayor of London and our network of commercial partners. For more information visit www.londonandpartners.com
Visitlondon.com is a comprehensive resource for everything that is happening in London. At any one time, this includes 20,000 event listings, plus content designed to inspire and assist visitors. Visitlondon.com is available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. Each month visitlondon.com attracts more than 3.5m visits and its social media channels have 1.75m followers. For more information visit www.visitlondon.com
KEY PARTNERS
South Bank BID
EVENT PARTNERS
Victoria Business Improvement District
SUPPORTERS
London and Continental Railways
We are Waterloo
MEDIA ENQUIRIES:
- Information about the Mayor of London/City Hall culture and events is available from Chris Calvert at [email protected], or call + 44 (0) 20 7983 4755.
- For further information about Lumiere London, contact Emma Collins at Flint PR: [email protected] / +44 (0) 203 463 2084 / +44 (0) 755 714 2630 or Anna Vinegrad, Communications Director at Artichoke: [email protected] / +44 (0)20 7650 1909
- For information about tourism in London, contact Bettina Gimenez, Senior Press Officer at London & Partners: [email protected] / +44 (0)20 7234 5892
GENERAL PUBLIC/NON-MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Call the Public Liaison Unit at the Greater London Authority on 020 7983 4100
DUTY PRESS OFFICER: For out-of-hours media enquiries, please call 020 7983 4000