Illuminating spaces, lighting up faces

Ji BRAND PROFILE Festive Lights

Illuminating Spaces, Lighting up Faces

Festive Lights has been helping customers large and small light up Christmas since 1999, and there’s seemingly no creative challenge the team can’t meet. Sarah Welsh spoke to Business Sales Director Matt Higginson about the key to the company’s success…

When it comes to those breathtaking public lighting displays that spark the first thoughts of Christmas in families up and down the country, Festive Lights has cornered the market.

From city centre shopping centres to theme parks and visitor attractions, the family company’s incredibly well-lit expertise helped bring to shining life more than 100 lighting displays the length and breadth of the UK in 2022.

Festive Lights secured the UK distribution rights for Italian lighting brand Twinkly and Twinkly PRO back in 2018, and the company’s project department works tirelessly to build displays over many months in the run-up to Christmas.

Matt says the team’s ‘personal favourite’ last year involved the tallest festive tree in the UK and 20,000 carefully synchronised LED lights – but more on that later…

Looking back on 2022, would it be fair to describe it as one of change and continued success for Festive Lights? Especially with the opening of your second Twinkly showroom in Colchester? Certainly one of change with political factors influencing the traditional marketplace and also successful for negotiating those challenging aspects. And yes it has been a real asset having a fully immersive showroom experience in the south, designed and operated by our partners Dreamwave Group. They’ve welcomed hundreds of businesses in 2022 and immersed them into the world of Twinkly. They’re open all year too so do get in touch with us, or with Dreamwave directly to arrange a visit.

The last couple of years has been a challenging one for the retail sector, but Festive Lights seems to have gone from strength to strength - is this testament to your investment in and expertise in digital? We continuously invest into our online b2b and b2c websites to optimise their function, appearance and visibility – we’re lucky to have some amazing employees who keep us on the ball! We use everything available to us as we strive to keep growing our customer base whilst maintaining a high trust pilot service score. Having a robust offering online bolted to our own distribution centre has certainly helped to negotiate a tough trading period for seasonal lighting. The key factors we have faced of inflation and cost of living crisis meant attracting new customers was more difficult. As part of our full ecommerce strategy, we do diversify our product ranges across 3rd party platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Mano Mano and others to spread the risk and to capitalise on alternative shopper trends. What were the big selling ranges for you for the festive season 2022? How big a percentage does the Twinkly partnership

contribute to your overall sales success? With over 2,000 Christmas SKUs it’s hard to pick standout ranges, however our Connect PRO and GO light strings had a great year, boosted by our supplier status change with C.E.F group. But all Twinkly string sizes dominated the sales split in traditional “plug in” lights. Twinkly’s Outdoor 3D light tree from 2-6m sizes all performed very well along with the indoor pre-lit 7.5ft tree with the new Twinkly Squares living up to hyped expectations. We also released our own “The sheer height commercial pre-lit garland range which are hand wrapped in our of the building at Spring Fair allows project room. These larger, higher quality stars, wreaths, archways and garlands were really popular us the freedom to for those customers wanting the ultimate wow factor. I’d say that erect a 23-foot tree!” Twinkly has increased its overall sales contribution within our group over the last few years and has established itself as a significant value-added brand. In terms of trade shows you’re exclusively exhibiting at Spring Fair this year - is this because the NEC show has been the most successful for you in the past? Yes, we have focused on the NEC fair for its diverse audience and central location. The 2022 show generated lots of business enquiries even though it was the first trade show back after the lockdowns. Besides, the height of the building allows us the freedom to erect our 7m (23ft) Twinkly PRO digital tree!

“Our project department was building large-scale lighting displays eight months in advance last year to satisfy demand.”

Dumbrave Vlasiei, Romania

How much of a focus does the team put on showroom visits as opposed to trade shows? We see them as of equal importance and generally they go hand in hand. Yes, we have amazing integrated showrooms for customers to spend time, but the interest is sparked at the trade shows initially. We still feel buyers like to visit shows to grasp a widespread shot of what’s new so if you are not there, it is easy to be missed.

What new lighting ranges and products are you looking to showcase for Christmas 2023 and what do you predict will be your biggest seller? We don’t want to give too much away but we’re ramping up the displays again this year with new ranges and concepts – visitors will just need to pop along to the show stand!

2023 will mark Festive Lights completing 23 Christmases. What is the key to your longevity? Yes, we served our first customers all the way back in 1999 and since those humble beginnings we have grown in size and structure to accommodate our vision. There are many keys to our longevity which have always focused around quality product and service which in time strengthens our brand through reputation. In recent years, we consolidated our own connectable system brands which are tailored specifically for business use. As a result, we share this offering to our retail customers who appreciate investing in commercial quality lighting and display. Embracing LED lighting in the Noughties and establishing a long-standing production partner allows us to expand the ranges whilst holding large stocks. And the addition of Twinkly’s app-controlled ranges in the last few years means we’ve achieved great balance which has placed us right at the cutting edge of lighting.

Festive Lights has a reputation for working on some of the biggest-scale festive light installations in the UK. Can you tell us about some of the projects you worked on in 2022? Our project department was building displays eight months in advance last year to satisfy demand. The professional side of the Twinkly brand is structured with a network of trained design and installation firms – our partner network – who handle most of the nation’s queries – from city centre to shopping centre dressing, to theme parks, zoos and visitor attractions, and hotels and other large businesses. Our personal favourite in 2022 was building a custom perimeter light panel wall for inside the base of the Cheshire Oaks Christmas tree, which is the tallest in the UK. It ended up being 22m in length and had 20,000 synchronised LED lights playing Christmas patterns throughout the visitor season. Manchester Ice Rink

Finally, what’s your predictions as far as festive lighting trends go for 2023? Like the last few years, we’d hope to see colour being added back in to displays – Twinkly has really prompted a shift to more diverse displays rather than single or double colours being used. We’ve successfully introduced a colour select option into our popular ConnectPRO system which sold out well before Christmas, therefore we’d expect this range to also see growth in 2023. Here at Festive Lights, we can cater for any trend and have lighting to suit any display so come and chat to us!