Light Night returns to the streets of Worcester for a fifth year
The second night of the event takes place this evening
Last updated 15th Feb 2024
Worcester's Light Night event for 2024 which sees some of the city's historic buildings brought to life with light art returned to the streets last night.
The event, which is now running in its fifth year, saw people of all ages, including even pet dogs turn up to the launch, with the rain failing to spoil the evening.
This year's theme is aimed at connectivity and bringing the community together to enjoy the displays, and over the two nights a crowd of over 20,000 people is expected, which would be a record.
Light Night is organised and ran by the Severn Arts group, and chief executive Laura Worsfold says how exciting and unique the full event is.
She said: " The beauty of it all is that it is so accessible to everyone, so you can just walk around for free and take it all in.
"It has really grown over the years, I remember the first one we did where we were quite nervous as we didn't know what to expect, and we were standing there thinking is anyone going to come.
"In the end we had about 5,000 each night, and from there we've just built on that, with each year looking to provide something different to what we did the year previous."
Various displays such as a 'Black Hole - End of Time' piece can be seen throughout areas of the city, using different forms of light to create art.
Every piece is designed to tell a unique story, and Laura says that the inspiration behind starting the project was to help refurbish some of the areas in Worcester.
She said: "Light Night was something we started as part of a bigger project to help renovate the arches, and Severn Arts were given a role to produce a series of festivals, including this.
"We started it with a view that Worcester had never seen anything quite like this before, and the full event is about using artists and installations and working together to animate the city centre, and to show it all in a different light as to how people usually see it.
"There's an expectation to the event now, which is lovely to see because we've created something that people look forward to hearing about and seeing each year."
One of the designs which is based in the Crowngate Shopping Centre is called 'Glowing and Growing', which used recycled materials and help from the public to produce the final product.
On one day alone nearly 900 people came along to contribute towards the design, something artists in charge Lou Baker and Oly Bliss were amazed by.
Oly said: "Seeing children's faces light up and get involved and stuck in with taking part in the project has just been great to see.
"We started the design by working with second hand clothes because we wanted to educate people with how much landfill we create each year, which is currently over 360,000 tonnes.
"Then we had members of the public come in and add their own pieces to the design, and some would stay two to three hours in producing something that they could contribute to the final product, and it's just been incredible seeing so many people."
The final night to see the displays gets underway at 6pm this evening, with another big crowd expected to turnout.