The con­tain­ers are start­ing to appear on the wharf – the LUX light fest­iv­al is back and opens Fri­day night!

Fest­iv­al dir­ect­or Mary Laine says they’re explor­ing some new ways of doing things. The fest­iv­al grows big­ger each year so this year they’re exper­i­ment­ing with five dis­tinct themes. By focus­ing five pre­cincts on par­tic­u­lar types of work they’re able to offer a bet­ter exper­i­ence for the audi­ence. (At least that’s the case this year – they might try some­thing dif­fer­ent next year.)

The five pre­cincts are:

  • The Play­ground pre­cinct is at Frank Kitts park. It’s focused on col­our­ful, enga­ging works for kids. It’s a safe envir­on­ment with games, work­shops and activ­it­ies that will change every night.
  • Te Ao Mārama is a bit fur­ther on, around Te Whare­waka o Pōneke/Odlins Plaza. It show­cases New Zealand’s Māori artists who work with new and emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies to cre­ate works rooted in tra­di­tion and cul­ture.
  • Walk­ing back over the City to Sea Bridge towards Civic Square will take you through the Cir­cus. A fam­ily friendly pre­cinct with wan­der­ing per­formers, street food, a pro­jec­tion onto the Town Hall, plus the oppor­tun­ity to light up the Michael Fowl­er Centre with your own design.
  • Lower Cuba Street hosts the Urb­an Edge pre­cinct. Light and sound artists, live glow­ing street art and win­dow art fea­ture here.
  • Finally, the Gal­ler­ies pre­cinct is dis­trib­uted through Opera House Lane, Te Aro Park, Eva Street, and Leeds Street. This is a quieter art exper­i­ence with dif­fer­ence pieces spread through the lane­ways.

There are more details about each pre­cinct includ­ing artists and fea­tured art­works on the LUX web­site. There’s also a map  to help you work out where everything is and you can fol­low along with the setup pro­gress on their Ins­tagram.

See you there!