Bristol Light Festival made its highly anticipated return (1^st-6^th March) with six evenings of stunning light installations across the city centre. Fourteen playful, immersive, and colourful artworks illuminated some of Bristol’s well-trodden paths as well as some unexpected places to create a city-wide event that was enjoyed by all.

The installations were met with excitement and delight as visitors of all ages and backgrounds explored the trail of light artworks created by world-renowned artists and the best of Bristol talent, all installations making their debut in the city. The programme was carefully curated to evoke feelings of discovery, play, peace and reflection, and people used the event as an opportunity to spend time with family, friends and loved ones whilst enjoying the city centre.

Disco fever took over Millennium Square as it became an open-air dancefloor and the Planetarium a gigantic disco ball, young and old enjoyed the light up musical swings on College Green, crowds gathered to watch an office building come to life on the waterfront and it wouldn’t be Bristol without an emotive artwork linked to Banksy on Park Street – these were just four of the 14 installations that made up the events programme.

Bristol Light Festival attracted a total of 170,000 visitors to the city centre to explore the city through light, shopping, eating and drinking along the way. This is almost double the number of visitors to the 2020 edition. Collectively, this year’s visitors totalled over 1.6 billion steps on their walk around the event – that’s more than the distance to the moon and back. The 2022 festival was a successful launch to the city’s recovery programme, and offered a safe, welcoming and vibrant way to see the city at night.