BY KEVIN O’SULLIVAN “T
he idea is to bring people up to that part of the city; it’s there to make a statement,” says Charlie Wood,
founder of Edinburgh’s Underbelly, who is bringing his marketing nous to a new festival set to light up the Royal Mile over the Christmas period. And make a statement it surely
will. Constructed along 24 arches, from the Tron Kirk to the City Cham- bers, and rising in places to a height of 19 metres, an array of 60,000 indi- vidual lights will bring the city’s Old Town to life reminiscent of, frankly, the more luminous New Town. “It came from lots of people say-
ing you should bring the success of Edinburgh’s Christmas from the New Town up to the Old Town – so that’s what we’re doing,” says Charlie, who was approached by the Royal Mile Business Association to try and generate a bit of a ‘wow’ factor – and, crucially, sales - for High Street trad- ers over the festive season. “It totally makes sense; I was up
there myself on a Tuesday evening during last year’s Christmas event. I was just walking along, on a dry night, and the street was completely empty, at 8:30pm. I thought it was ridiculous; this is one of the greatest streets in the world and it should be filled at Christmas time.”
THE STREETOF LIGHT festival is being brought to Edinburgh courtesy of an Italian company, De Cagna. Charlie came across their walk-un- der street lighting displays on a visit to Las Fallas, a traditional celebration held in commemoration of Saint Jo- seph in the Spanish city of Valencia, in March. Te festival is a celebration of the
end of winter and the beginning of spring, and takes over the whole city. Gigantic papier mâché puppets are hoisted high above roundabouts – of all places – and are then filled with fireworks, and on the final night are detonated. “It’s pretty terrifying,” says Charlie.
“But it really is the most extraordi- nary thing – the whole city is behind it and it’s very community driven; and the Church does a parade to the city centre; every roundabout gets used for something.” Charlie adds that the company,
who are bussing the entire set across Europe to Edinburgh, first introduced the lighting displays on two streets in Valencia 10 years ago, building “amazing architectural in-
Twenty four arches and 60,000 lights will illuminate the Royal Mile n DELIVERY
The Street of Light Festival is sponsored by Virgin Money, and has also received funding from Event Scotland and the Royal Mile Business Association (RMBA). The city’s Festival Choir, the Po-
lice Choir and the Gay Men’s Chorus and the Royal Choral Union recorded the music, for which rights fees were paid to the artists.
Seven lighting technicians from
De Cagna will travel to Edinburgh to build the installation; the PA is being done by Underbelly staff with equipment hired from Edinburgh firm Catalyst.
The event was marketed through Edinburgh’s Christmas, which has a
database of email subscribers, and also through Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
It is a ticketed but free event; the
capacity is up to 5,000 people, who will enter the performance area through barriers. Up to 250,000 people are expected with 132,000 tickets issued at the time of going to print. Performances are at 6.30pm and 8.15pm Monday to Saturday and 5.30pm and 7.30pm on Sundays. The audience breakdown is around 40-45 per cent from Edinburgh/ Lothians; 30 per cent from the rest of Scotland, 14 per cent from the rest of the UK and the remainder from overseas.
stallations” on wooden frames, then filling them with different coloured lights; a few years later the lights were synchronised with music. Tat is a theme very much in mind
for Charlie’s vision for Edinburgh. He recruited four of the city’s choirs to record songs, whose music will be amplified across the High Street. But there is no actual switch on,
not a celebrity pressing a button in sight. Instead the lights will come on with the very first performance on St Andrews Day on November 30th and run until December 24th. “I think
What:The Street of Light Festival Where:The Royal Mile, Edinburgh When:30 November - 24 December, 2015
EVENTSBASE | NOVEMBER 2015 | 17
Christmas is a time for family and community and to bring that angle in to the event I very much wanted the music to come from the city and the community,” says Charlie.
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