Festive lighting that continues to deliver well into the new year
When we talk about “festive lighting”, most people tend to think that we’re talking purely about Christmas lighting. Sure, Christmas lighting is a big part of what we do, but festive lighting and carefully designed lighting displays can turn any occasion into an attraction that drives footfall, makes people happy, and gives visitors reasons to return to a space time and again, and stay for longer.
Today, we want to show you how you can use festive lighting in your city or shopping center to create multiple reasons for visitors to return to your space again and again from September to March, using the same basic lighting infrastructure, and modifying colors and motifs depending on the month.
One festive lighting infrastructure, multiple opportunities to attract visitors
In the northern hemisphere, the days get shorter and the nights longer from the end of September, so this is an ideal time to install lighting in your space. Combine this with autumnal colors, twinkling lights and a clever marketing campaign promoting autumn offers to get visitors in the mood for a visit.
The end of October is Halloween, a celebration made famous in America and increasingly celebrated around the world. Use our modular lighting system to replace the subdued autumnal lighting motifs with motifs that add a bit of “fright” to the night: lovely oranges, pumpkin-shaped 2D and 3D lighting designs, and perhaps even a few props can help you transform your space into an atmospheric space. Build in age-appropriate events, competitions and online and offline marketing campaigns, and you’ve turned your space into a brand new visitor attraction.
November is when the long, dark nights really settle in, and people start thinking about how close Christmas is. It’s time to remove the Halloween themed lighting elements, and replace them with motifs that speak to the people you want to attract: go for warm white light and elegant shapes to attract prestige shoppers, or family-friendly snowmen and snowflakes to attract families. Remind visitors that it’s less stressful to get Christmas shopping done early, and create reasons for them to stop by: create interesting events, run competitions, build in family-friendly entertainment, and spread the news so that people know what’s happening.
Early December is when the full-on Christmas lighting typically goes on show: change motifs and colors to fill your space with Christmas spirit.
You might think that this is the end of your festive lighting, but you’d be wrong:
- New Year’s Eve is the next celebration: champagne whites, new year’s sales, and lighting motifs that put Christmas firmly in the past are what you need to get visitors back to your space.
- January can be a depressing time, an anti-climax after the busy-ness of the holidays, so keep your festive lighting in place to brighten up your space, with wintery motifs that bring a smile to people’s faces.
- February is a fabulous opportunity to celebrate Valentine’s Day – change motifs to hearts and fill your space with a red glow. And the Chinese New Year isn’t far off, so replace hearts with dragons and throw a fireworks party to drive footfall.
- Depending on the time of the year and where you are, carnival celebrations are next: replace heart and dragon motifs with Venetian masks and bright colors, and arrange a parade to get visitors engaged and involved.
- Just when you thought you’d exhausted the possibilities for festive lighting, it’s time to celebrate Easter and the start of spring: the nights are growing shorter, but they’re still long and it’s still chilly, so warm people up with festive lighting motifs that welcome the warmer weather: from eggs, bunnies and baby chicks, to blooming daffodils and tulips, it’s easy to make your space a visitor destination again.
Phew! Countless possibilities for attracting visitors with festive lighting.
Well, perhaps not “countless” – in the example above, we’ve shown that it’s possible to transform a city, shopping center or public space into 10 different visitor attractions by keeping one festive lighting infrastructure and simply changing colors and motifs and combining the new lighting with carefully planned and targeted visitor attraction campaigns.
Tried and tested: it works!
See how the city of Sint-Truiden in Belgium used their festive lighting for multiple months to attract visitors before, during and after the Christmas season with the technique we’ve described above.
Intrigued? Let’s chat!
This modular approach to festive lighting allows you to make the most of your marketing and visitor attraction budget, whilst continually delivering fresh new experiences to your audiences. If you’d like to explore the possibilities, get in touch and we’ll give you some ideas about how we can help you transform your city, shopping center or space.