On the one hand, Christmas is still ages away. Some of us are only just prepared to accept – faced with decisions about turning heating on and getting soggy whenever we step outside – that summer is over, and anyway, we’ve still got Halloween and Guy Fawkes night before the festive season gets underway. On the other, some people like to get organised for Christmas and even those of us who don’t can find everything we want to do is booked up because we’ve left it until December before we are prepared to give Christmas any thought.
So with that in mind – Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas is back with a new route and new designs to get your family festive season off to the perfect start under the stars.
Christmas light trails have become a bit of a thing in recent years, becoming an anticipated part of the build up to the big day for many.
At the end of November, Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas will open for 2024, and promises to be bigger, better and more beautiful than ever, with organisers promising the Christmas Wonderland theme begins the moment visitors arrive.
“We’re pulling out all the stops to make this the most brilliantly illuminated Christmas possible,” say co-directors Libby Battaglia and Lucinda Croft.
“These installations are made especially for Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas – you won’t see them anywhere else.”
As well as fantastic new light art to experience – including an incredible opportunity to walk on water – Light Up Trails have worked with Sir Harold Hillier Gardens to design a new route through some of the UK’s most important botanical gardens.
“The Hillier collections make the most amazing backdrop to our light art and this year, for the first time, the trail takes in the historic Centenary Border with Éclat Floral, a breathtakingly vivid crimson bloomscape, and the magical interactive metallic touch stones of Chromatic Touch, as well as a new site for our old favourite, Written in the Stars, that we’re bringing back with a screen that’s twice the size of the old one.”
This is good news for those of us who like to see messages like “sleigh the patriarchy” or “save the NHS” spelled out in festive letters. More conventional seasonal greet are also acceptable.
For 2024, Off-Peak and Peak tickets are the same price as last year, but there’s a new Super Peak ticket for a number of extra special nights when the light trail is enhanced by live entertainment in association with Steamship Circus. Fire jugglers, larger-than-life characters and awesome aerial artistes are set to elevate the Light Up experience.
“Last year more than 72,000 people visited us and we learned a great deal from the feedback we received. For instance, we know a lot of our visitors see Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas as the first big family night out of the festive season so we’re going all out to make it one to remember.”
As a result of audience feedback, Light Up Trails have also revamped the food and drink menu to offer a wider choice, and have made a host of further improvements such as the large marquee with covered and outdoor eating areas, more accessible pathways and viewpoints, installing wheelchair-friendly ramps to cover cables, more toilets with baby changing units and upgrading the lighting and signage in the car park.
And there’s still time for schools to enter the Light Up Trails Schools Creative Competition to create a design that could be projected onto the large illuminated baubles as part of Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas. The winning design will be one of ten chosen to feature in the light trail, plus its designer will win a £1,000 prize for their school’s art department.
Find out more here
For more about Light Up Sir Harold Hillier Gardens At Christmas and to book tickets, visit lightuptrails.com.
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