The Mayor of Lyons has announced that the city’s biggest annual event, the Fête des Lumières (Festival of Lights), has been cancelled due to last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which has put the country on high alert. “We have decided that the festival of lights could not take place in its usual form—festive, poetic, light-hearted,” he explained. The programme, planned for 5-8 December with 70 venues, has been pushed back until 2016.
Some planned events for 8 December will continue, including a light installation by Daniel Knipper, Regards, which features digitised details from famous paintings. That same night, the city will hold its traditional candlelight ceremony, “in a tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris”, according to its website. The glass votive candles are sold to benefit a charity each year; the proceeds this year will be split between the designated charity, Rêve d’enfants, and an association for the Paris casualties.
Colombe said that lighting up 200,000 votive candles will be a “profound homage to the victims, a powerful message of unity”. He told our sister paper, Le Journal des Arts, that the crowd will presumably be “essentially Lyonnais”.
The annual festival of light installations and projections, organised by the city since 1999, attracts around 3 million visitors per year, and had a budget of €2.6m last year (50% from private partners).
