Iconic streets and buildings became a pedestrian playground.

At Oxford Circus, closed to traffic for the event, people lay on their backs gazing up at 1.8 London, Janet Echelman's beautifully illuminated aerial sculpture that was strung between buildings.

Along a pedestrianised Regent Street, crowds gathered to see Groupe LAPS/Thomas Veyssiére’s Keyframes, LED stick men, moving in sequence in celebration of retro video games and Elephantastic!, a 3D, larger-than-life projected elephant stomping through the Air Street arch. At Westminster Abbey, audiences stood mesmerized by The Light of the Spirit, a digital painting by French artist Patrice Warrener, who had bathed the Abbey's West Gate in an electric riot of colour.

In Carnaby, on Broadwick Street, visitors gathered around Julian Opie's animated LED monolith, Shaida Walking. The piece was commissioned as a permanent installation for the area.

Aquarium, Benedetto Bufalino & Benoit Deseille's iconic red telephone box filled with exotic fish at Grosvenor Square, was a firm festival favourite, drawing audiences to the leafy garden square in Mayfair. The square was also home to Elaine Buckholtz's abstract digital painting, Spinning Night in Living Colour.

Hundreds of Londoners of all ages played their part in the festival: from donating a recycled plastic bottle to the glowing Plastic Islands installation by Luzinterruptus in the Trafalgar Square fountains, to appearing on film in the spectacular Circus of Light projected onto the Granary Building at King's Cross. 500 children also took part in workshops at schools in the area to help make Joining the Dots and Litre of Light, both also at King's Cross.

Lumiere London was supported by the Mayor of London.

Winner of Best Debut and Best Outdoor Event at the Event Awards.

Les Luminéoles
Les Luminéoles, Porté Par Le Vent. Lumiere London 2016, produced by Artichoke, supported by Mayor of London. Photograph by Matthew Andrews

Lumiere London Statistics

  • Total audience over four evenings

    1.37 million

  • Number of security and stewarding staff

    400

  • Number of fish in the Aquarium phonebox

    69

  • Number of recycled bottles for Plastic Islands in Trafalgar Square

    20,000

  • Number of Team London volunteers

    278

  • Winner, Best Debut Event & Best Outdoor Event

    Event Magazine Awards

'What was it that made Londoners leave their homes and tourists their hotels during the city’s coldest four nights in years and, as many spontaneously did, lie face up on the freezing tarmac of Oxford Circus? Light is one answer. Art, another. For those four days the art scene in London was transformed.'

~ John Nathan, The Times ~