Last week I wrote about the value of urban lighting.

Another case study worth looking at is Lumiere London. It was a four day light festival that took place in January, which is normally a pretty quiet and dark month. This past year in London the festival saw over 1 million visitors who spent over £22 million.

Here’s a time lapse video of the festival in action:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESxG9KsaeJo&w=560&h=315]

Click here if you can’t see the embedded video.

It’s obviously a temporary festival, but it’s a great example of how lighting can transform a city. After the event, the Guardian (which gave it 4/5 stars) talked about the city itself becoming the story. They also said that it managed to “unzip and open out the city” in a way that politicians and town planners often struggle to do.

Sounds like fun.