Light Ness
Origami Birds, Nat Smith Designs, 2014
Contents 1. Introduction 2. What is a light festival? 3. Why? 4. When? 5. Tourism 6. What next?
Introduction
Berlin’s Festival of Light
Light Ness is a light festival which will aim to bring creative people together from the Highlands of Scotland, and surrounding areas, in Inverness to light up and bring life to the city in the winter time. This will be done through visual and digital arts designed by local talent who will submit their work through an online submission. The festival could be extended to all creative industries and hold other exhibitions in local galleries, such as musicians, sculpture artists, illustrators and photographers.
What is a light festival?
Lyon’s Fete Des Lumieres, 2013
As part of my research for this project, I have been to a number of light festivals over the past two years. In December 2013, I attended Les Fete Des Lumieres in Lyon, by far the biggest of them all. The following October, I visited the Enchanted Forest and straight after, Berlin’s ten year anniversary of the Festival of Lights before heading to The Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh for Night in the Garden which was designed by my lecturers from Edinburgh Napier University. Each of these experiences were based on a theme giving the user an opportunity to explore parts of the city they normally wouldn’t visit, while interacting with and viewing light installations and other pieces of work from creative talent around the globe.
Why?
Lyon’s Fete Des Lumieres, 2013
Inverness does not have a creative event like this. This would be an entirely new festival showcasing local talent over a short period of time each year. It could create experiences for students studying in the area similar to what I have experienced myself in Edinburgh Napier University through my Professional Practice Module where we have been working on our submissions to the Hidden Door Festival which has now been given the go ahead and will be running at the end of May. There are lots of courses in the University of the Highlands and Islands who could also get involved in creating and exhibiting in the festival just like we have with the Hidden Door Festival.
Enchanted Forest, 2014
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When?
Here you see a basic chart of events in Inverness throughout the year. It shows the main events that happen in the city each year. Annual Inverness Fiddlers’ Rally (February), Inverness Music Festival (March), Rockness & XpoNorth (June), Highland Games (July), Belladrum, North Hop, Highland Field Sports Fair & Inverness Book Fesitval (August), Loch Ness Marathon & Beast Race, Blas Festival, Highland Archaeology Festival, Highland Military Tattoo & Northern Meeting Piping Competition (September), The Royal National Mod (October), Bonfire Night & Inverness Film Festival (November) and Hogmanay finishing off the year. Things quiet down at the start of the year and don’t pick up again until summer so this would be the ideal time to hold Light Ness.
Tourism
Lyon’s Fete Des Lumieres, 2013
As previously stated, the first months of the year would be the best time to hold an event such as this as there is not a lot to do in the city at this time and the tourism numbers have been shown to thin out too. Looking at this infographic, you can see that January to March only brings 17% of tourists to the Highlands from the UK while only 6% travel here from overseas. All light festivals I have been to have attracted people from all over the world. Even The Enchanted Forest, which takes place just outside Pitlochry, attracted over 46,500 people in 2014, bringing in around £2 million for the local economy. The information in this infographic all comes from Visit Scotland’s online data.
What next?
Enchanted Forest, 2014
I feel very passionately about this becoming a real event and I’ve already had some good responses through social media as well as creatives, interested in exhibiting their work. This type of event brings together communities and strangers from all over the world and would benefit the city not only culturally but economically as well. I send this proposal looking for sponsors, partners and anyone interested in Light Ness becoming a reality.
facebook.com/LightNessFestival @LightNess_Fest www.lightnessfestival.tumblr.com lightnessfestival@gmail.com