A night full of lights

Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of Leeds’ biggest free annual multi-arts event called the light nights. I must say I did not know what to expect, at home we have ‘lichtjesavond’ which means we light up a Christmas tree all together and that is pretty much it for the entire evening. So I was hoping that it would be at least a bit more spectacular than that, and luckily that was definitely the case.

We started by going to the Civic Hall, there they projected a story on the building itself which was an spectacular site. The story projected was called ‘The Phoenix in the Stone, a beautiful fable for the four quarters of Yorkshire, weaved from shadow and light’. Lots of families and children came out to see all the lights and events happening in Leeds.

After that we started walking around and came across a church. This was the most amazing church, they handed out free candles at the door so that the entire church could be lighted up. When we went inside there were candles literarily everywhere. Besides the beautiful gesture of handing out free candles they also had a choir singing which created an amazing atmosphere.

Last but not least we went to the Town hall which was beautifully light up and saw a performance of fire dancers in front of it. Even though it started raining halfway through the performance they kept going and put on an amazing show. I was definitely surprised by how much effort Leeds put into this festival.