Two Huge Festivals Of Light Are Back This Winter To Enchant Our Frosty Souls
Lots of excellent and fun things were cancelled in 2020 for obvious reasons, but thankfully, two big festivals of light are back for 2021 to bring us all the enchantment we need – Vivid Sydney and LUMA Southern Light Project in Queenstown.
As far as cities go, Sydney and Queenstown are already pretty wonderful, but their respective annual festivals of light transform them into magical (technologically innovative) wonderlands. After a rough 2020, we’re buzzing with the news that both Vivid Sydney and LUMA are back on the 2021 agenda.
The key change to note is that Sydney’s beloved Vivid Light Festival is now running from Friday 6 to Saturday 28 August, as opposed to previous years that spanned May and June.
Now in its 12th year, Vivid Sydney is known as the festival of Light, Music and Ideas. It’s going to inject a huge amount of spark and creativity back into the harbour city, “with large-scale light installations and projections, free family events, cutting-edge music performances and thought-provoking ideas talks, workshops and conferences”.
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Seen as a major driver of innovation and tourism dollars in the typically quieter winter period, Vivid Sydney is a big deal for the city. The 2019 festival attracted over 2 million visitors and contributed millions of dollars to the NSW economy, and while those numbers won’t be anywhere near similar this year, the festival is set to boost the economy nonetheless.
Meanwhile, across the ditch in New Zealand, LUMA spans the Queens Birthday weekend, from June 4 to 7. As if you needed another reason to visit this south island gem, the festival is a sensory experience bringing together illuminated art, light sculpture, performance and community over four days on the shores of Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown.
The ticketed event (at very do-able $6 per person for the whole weekend) transforms the waterfront into a magical forest wonderland lit up by 90,000 individual lights, with interactive light sculptures and illuminated art installations. Plus there’s music, food and more.
It finally feels like things are turning around, with epic events to look forward to on the horizon.
For more information on schedules and tickets, check out the Vivid Sydney and LUMA websites.
(Header image: Vivid Sydney / LUMA Facebook)
