💡 Light Night 2024: Our Top Picks

Light Night is returning to Leeds this year, set to transform the city’s most recognisable spaces with stunning installations, immersive performances, and a wide array of events. Taking place on the 24th and 25th October 2024, don’t miss out on the UK’s largest annual arts and light festival set to awe and dazzle guests with its vibrant delights! To help you on your way, here are our top 10 picks of things to see at this year’s Light Night …

Spark!

Head to the Briggate Zone to see Spark! (UK), who are returning to Light Night this year, interacting with the crowd with their dramatic, choreographed music performances. With remarkable costumes and kaleidoscopic lighting designs, these other-worldly characters are something to be seen!

Location: Leeds Trinity – Main Atrium, LS1 5AR

Time: Thursday & Friday: 6pm 7pm, 8pm, 9pm (20min)

Out of the Aire

Out of the Aire is also making a return to Leeds this October, bringing fresh and updated content after its 2017 Light Night presentation. This stunning installation highlights Leeds’ history as a hub of innovation, engineering, sports, and the arts. Inspired by the individuals who first put Leeds on the map, it explores remarkable milestones like the testing of rocket-powered torpedoes in Waterloo Lake, the creation of the world’s first motion picture, and numerous sporting triumphs. The presentation includes a soundtrack featuring Leeds’ own singers and bands, paying homage to the city’s musical talents.

Location: Leeds Civic Hall, Millennium Square, LS1 1UR

Time: Thursday & Friday, 7pm-10pm (repeats throughout the evening)

Celestial Sound Cloud

Celestial Sound Cloud is an interactive digital sound and light sculpture, inspired by cosmic clouds and nebulas – the sources of dust and gases where eventually stars are formed. Guests are invited to stand underneath the suspended installation, where they can sing to their hearts’ content and dance like nobody is watching, to create their own unique visual and sound experiences.

Location: Rose Walk Frames, 5 Wellington Place, LS1 4AP

Time: Thursday & Friday 6-10pm

Globoscope

In the Wellington Zone, The Junction is sure to be a stand out venue, hosting a variety of art installations, interactive performances, and food and drink pop-ups! Globoscope will feature in the Urban Garden, where over 200 luminous spheres will pulse light and sound in changing sequences. It will transform the gardens into a glowy, ethereal landscape sure to awe visitors. 

Location: The Junction, Monk Bridge Viaduct Urban Garden, LS12 1DF

Time: Thursday & Friday 6-10pm

NocturnFox: The Silent Observer!

Head to the Millenium Square Zone to meet NocturnFox: The Silent Observer! Prowling the city centre adorned with striking floral mandalas, this fox represents life cycles in nature. And if you have time, why not pop into Leeds Cathedral right next door to admire the beautiful design or perhaps light a candle in its peaceful interior.

Location: Cookridge Street, LS1 8TL

Time: Thursday & Friday, 6pm-10pm

Slideshow

Walking into South Bank Zone, you will be transported through time with Slideshow showing Leeds’ rich history. A remarkable array of vintage photos from the 1970s to the 1990s that have rarely been seen before projected with a traditional slide projector. The photos, curated by local historian and artist Clifford Stead, are accompanied by a bespoke audio track using field recordings created sound artist Fran Bundey, which is sure to stir emotions and evoke feelings of the city’s past and present.

Location: Department Leeds Dock, 4 The Boulevard, LS10 1PZ

Time: Thursday & Friday 6 -10pm – Duration: 12 minutes (repeats throughout the evening)

Valkyrie

Take a walk into the SOYO Zone to see Valkyrie, a huge floating orb made out of recycled plastics. It’s glow is inspired by the Northern Light, and it responds to sounds and voices, so you can create your own aura by speaking into the sculpture and create new colours and patterns that ripple across its surface. There are also several short performances taking place underneath Valkyrie;

• 6.30 & 7.15pm: Leeds Playhouse’s Youth Theatre reflect on our place in the cosmos, how we can sustain our planet and what it means for the future.

• 8.00 & 8.45pm: Leeds City College

• 9.30pm: Leeds Conservatoire

Location: Soyo Square, LS2 7PA

Time: Thursday & Friday, 6pm-10pm

Lumens

Unearthly creatures can be spotted roaming King Edward Street in the Briggate Zone on four legs in mirrored suits covered in colour changing fibre optic lights. Known as Lumens, these creatures are robotic in movement, and embody everything that is alien, supernatural, and exotic.

Location: 23 King Edward St, LS1 6AX

Time: Thursday & Friday – 6.55pm & 8.10pm (45 minutes)

Heofon Light Maze

The Stourton and Elland Road Park and Ride facilities will be staying open late especially for Light Night with each location playing host to an installations for your enjoyment. Further details can be found here. Heofon Light Maze will be located in at the Elland Road Park and Ride; meaning ‘the sky, the firmament, the heavens’, this immersive installation conjures a unique cosmos of overlapping light patterns and constantly changing colours. Created from acrylic panels in place of hedges, you can also enter the infinity room!

Location: Elland Road Park and Ride, Beeston, LS11 0EY

Time: Thursday & Friday 6-10pm

Them Bones

Last but certainly not least, Them Bones can be found roaming The Headrow; these two towering illuminated skeletons are inspired by the Mexican festival ‘Day of the Dead’, a holiday dedicated to honour deceased loved ones. They walk, embrace, and can even dance together!

Location: Victoria Gardens, The Headrow, LS1 3AA

Time: Thursday & Friday: 6pm, 7.15pm & 8.30pm (45min)

Visit Light Night Leeds for more information on the amazing installations and events at Light Night 2024!