LIGHTPOOL FESTIVAL • 21-31 OCTOBER 2026

LIGHTPOOL FESTIVAL
21-31 OCTOBER 2026

Lightpool Festival 2016

28 October 2016 – 2 November 2016

Lightpool Festival 2016

There’s a new festival beginning in Blackpool this year. From October 28 to November 2, art works made with light will transform Blackpool town centre, inspired by the buildings, history and people who live here. We’re calling it the LightPool Festival.

More than 20 installations from local, national and international artists will create a walking route to link together Blackpool’s iconic buildings and town centre businesses with light. Our hope is to encourage people to spend more time in the town at a moment when it has most to offer, to boost the local economy and celebrate the place where The Lights began.

Lightpool Festival 2016 Art Trail

Blackpool Illuminations

Visitors to Blackpool North will be greeted with some favourite illuminations from the archive.

Light Lessons

A group of diffracted beings will guide you through a darkened passage. New commission for LightPool 2016.

Art Is Your Human Right

Illuminated words hang at eye-catching locations around the town centre. Bob and Roberta Smith will also lead a public discussion on the power of art to drive social change on Fri 28 Oct.

The Storm

Visit an intense, 16ft thundercloud created with over 6,000 individual lights.

Spaceman

Originally designed for the Space Age road section by Alan Cockcroft in 1970. Get up close and personal with a giant interpretation from the famous moon landing over 50 years ago – they’re out of this world!

UK

Se7en

7 fixtures. 7 fittings. 7 beams. 7 colours. The Illuminations team work with the number seven to light one of the town’s standout art-deco uildings, formerly the Odeon Cinema and now home to Funny Girls, the town’s most glamorous, long-running show.

Let’s Pretend

Tim Etchells uses words to spark odd thoughts – what ‘this’ should we pretend to forget?

Bump

Hidden in plain sight, Bump suggests a hidden bar or club at the rear entrance of the Grundy.

Neon: The Charged Line (Exhibition)

The most extensive exhibition of neon-based artwork to have been held in the UK to date. Featuring some of the most iconic artists and artworks produced in the medium over the last 50 years including Tracey Emin, Joseph Kosuth and Gavin Turk

Fluted Pylons

Jo Berry has interpreted five fluted pylons with themes taken from the Illuminations original 1930’s collection.

UK

In Flow No.2

The façade of Springfield Road Market is transformed into a continuously modifying audio visual artwork modelled on atomic scale patterns.

Brothers and Sisters

More than 30 drawing of children, made with light, appear in the windows of the former New Ocean Hotel; including 3 new works by the children of Blackpool’s Revoe Academy.

I Waited

A simple but heart-breaking response to the loneliest bench in town. New commission for LightPool 2016

When The Red Rose In Blackpool

Wrapping a piece of architectural heritage of this famous resort in a protective bubble, is artist Steve Messam’s playful and surreal celebration of Blackpool’s unique seaside heritage.

Flock

A collection of illluminated windsocks, which together resemble the ahaviour of flocks of birds. Pullig worked with the residents of King Edward Ave in North Shore and seamster Joe Booth.

Plenty and Progress & What Use Is Life Without Progress

Blackpool’s borough motto. Plenty and progress, inspired by Claudegen’s 1930s neon designs, illuminates Blackpool Town Hall - a symbol for development and prosperity.

Imagine Peace Love Yoko

IMAGINE PEACE (2016) is an update of Ono’s billboards reworked in film, created in conjunction with Art Production Fund and Times Square Arts in several versions from 2012 onwards.

Tower Projections

Step into a magical world and experience the delightful charm of the Blackpool Tower Projections! Let yourself be captivated by the mesmerising display of lights, colours, and music that will transport you to a whimsical era full of vintage allure and soothing tunes.

UK

Goodbye Coco

Never before seen in public, this is a coffin for a fictional clown bedecked with 540 programmed fairground lights, and made precisely to fit the artist himself. Whether the piece is sad or funny, is entirely up to you!

Parts of a Lighthouse

This classic light art installation sits in the nave of Blackpool’s Sacred Heart Church, refracting light from its magnificent octagonal roof through tetrahedral prisms in kaleidoscopic shards to form a dazzlingly beautiful house made from beams of light, as per Ono’s original script.

Salvage Slideshow

Salvage Sideshow: a rusty, beaten up Punch and Judy booth stands dripping with water on the pavement.

Ruby & Santiago

Ruby - animated self-portrait exploring the idea of rebirth and illustrating the transfer of energy from one incarnation to another.

Cathedral of Mirrors

12 towering columns of light respond to movement, creating an immersive environment

UK

Workers Canteen (Bar Mleczny)

First built in the 60s to advertise a milk bar in Warsaw, Olowska’s winking neon connects two places and two moments in time.

Peacock

Peacock was created in the 1990s as a feature of the legendary Blackpool illuminations. Originally displayed as part of a four-piece tableau, it was saved when severe storm damage caused the original piece to be destroyed.

Virtual DJ: Live on Brilliance

Students from London Guildhall’s BA in Video Design for Live Performance imagine a DJ to add to the Brilliance arches.

The Musical Periscope

An immersive installation by Reactify, a unique music production company founded by London-based Yuli Levtov. In Blackpool for its UK premier.

Brain Container

Lit, moving art made up of 36 cast acrylic discs, housed in a customised cargo container.

The Stories Under Our Feet

Newly interpreted for LightPool 2016, light and shadow poems magically emerge from underneath Blackpool’s Victoria Street benches.

Round Gradient Remix

British artist Liz West transforms the iconic dome at the Winter Gardens, inspired by the principal of a spatial colour wheel and based on Isaac Newton’s first circular diagram of colour in 1666. Enabled in partnership with light manufacturer and innovator Lumenpulse.

Pop Mandela Umbrellas

Influential pop, street and contemporary artist Ben Allen has reimagined gobo designs to illuminate 16 umbrellas to adorn the Winter Gardens façade.

Final Fleet

The UK’s premier street art crew, Manchester-based duo Nomad Clan created this tribute to the once fruitful but now diminishing fishing industry in and around Blackpool and Fleetwood.

Echelle

Originally commissioned for the Salisbury Festival, this iconic 10m neon ladder appears to be a stairway to heaven.

Lightpool Festival 2016 Events

Captain Kronos: Return to Planet Earth

A flying spaceship, aerial performance, pyro and rousing soundtrack, as well as illuminated procession and parade involving up to 100 people

Polar

Direct from France, Compagnie Bilbobasso come to Blackpool with Polar, a fable of fire and tango.

Lumidogs Grand Finale

Produced by our in-house team and exclusive to LightPool Festival, Lumidogs is back and it’s bigger and better than ever before!

Mr Wilsons Second Liners

A rabble of mischievous Northerners, Mr Wilson’s Second Liners form a traditional New Orleans funeral brass band

Les Intervention Mobiles

Percussion, fire, lights, motion and pure energy: Les Commandos Percu are the pioneers of street fire performance, with 30 years of experience and performances across the world. For their first outing in Blackpool, we bring Interventions Mobiles, an explosive procession of fire and sound.

Spark!

The original and best LED drummers, Spark! Is a unique, captivating and outstanding show like no other!

On The Edge of a Rising Tide

This off-grid outdoor cinema will rove through the streets of Blackpool to tell a story about issues that affect all of us who live near the North West coast.

Lightpool Festival 2016 Engagement

Brothers and Sisters

More than 30 drawing of children, made with light, appear in the windows of the former New Ocean Hotel; including 3 new works by the children of Blackpool’s Revoe Academy.

Captain Kronos: Return to Planet Earth

A flying spaceship, aerial performance, pyro and rousing soundtrack, as well as illuminated procession and parade involving up to 100 people

Lumidogs Grand Finale

Produced by our in-house team and exclusive to LightPool Festival, Lumidogs is back and it’s bigger and better than ever before!

Spark!

The original and best LED drummers, Spark! Is a unique, captivating and outstanding show like no other!

Light Gallery