One million bulbs shine in Heaton Park this winter thanks to Lightopia

Europe’s largest light festival has come to Heaton Park in Manchester this winter. 

Lightopia has welcomed a great number of curious visitors who wanted to see the spectacular art installations. The festival happens annually in three different cities in the UK – Edinburgh, London and Manchester. Overall, there are one million bulbs used for the lanterns at Heaton Park.

The visual art is accompanied by live acrobatic performances and music, as well as food markets and runs until the end of December. 

The event, which takes place in Manchester’s largest historic park, aims to create ”interaction between space and form”. 

When walking through the visual parade, viewers have a chance to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere at this time of the year. 

On Thursday, a lot of the guests watched the young indie-rock musicians playing ‘Christmas is all around’ with a hot mulled wine in their hand. Later on, hypnotising acrobatic dances were performed by artists dressed in traditional Chinese costumes. 

Sarah and Philip decided to come to Lightopia for their fourth anniversary.

Sarah said: ”Last year, we were on a trip in the Caribbean; this year we are in Heaton Park in the rain but this place is so mesmerizing! I am into photography so I liked that there are so many cool things to see. We also loved the acrobats and the band.”

Philip added: ”It’s good to see something that you see every day transformed into something different. We live around the corner so I’m going to come back to the park eventually, probably in the summer. I’m going to be depressed that I don’t see giant flashing peacock.”

Welsh student Ted Peskett said he attended the festival because it is the first of this kind in Manchester.

He said:” I’ve never really seen anything like that in Manchester before. I loved the music and the lights; the colours are the main attraction for me. The music is a bonus and the mulled wine is good too!”