It’s time to start planning your festive lighting. Here are some ideas to get you started.
The school holidays are only weeks away, and by the time they’re over, the holiday season will be just around the corner. This is a wonderful opportunity for cities, shopping centers, shopping streets and leisure, travel and tourism businesses to attract visitors, and they expect not simply wonderful shops, but festive lighting, seasonal decoration and the once-in-a-year atmosphere that comes around in December.
The question is: have you even started thinking about your festive lighting and decoration?
If the answer is “no, it’s time to get started! The key to attracting visitors is to turn your space into a visual experience with a welcoming atmosphere that makes people stop, have a “wow” moment, before taking photos – with or without themselves – to share on social media, and of course, to talk about with family and friends.
The scale of the decorations and the type of lighting should ideally be customized to fit into your space to create a consistent and compelling image.
If you haven’t finalized your festive lighting yet, here are a few things that you can start doing right now.
Get started by thinking about four things
Choose the locations that will showcase your festive lighting to best effect
Take a walk around your space – whether it’s a shopping center, a city, a leisure venue – and look at it with fresh eyes. What will have the most impact when visitors enter your space? Where might small-scale décor work well? Are there areas in your space where large-scale experience lighting and decoration might act as a focal point?
Make a note of which architectural elements you want to emphasise and which you want to hide
Are the facades that could be turned into features with creative lighting installations? Stunning architectural gems that you want to show off and that might benefit from being draped in thousands of twinkling light points? And are there aspects of your space that you want to hide? For example, unsightly construction work, or routes that lead away from your main festive space?
Think about the visitors you want to attract and what lighting theme might appeal to them
If you have a high-end shopping mall, you might want an opulent theme in mind, with classic gold and shimmering warm whites. If your space is more traditional, it may make sense to incorporate relevant cultural motifs into your festive lighting to reinforce the meaning of the space. If you want to attract families to enjoy your festive lighting and festive attractions, you might need child-friendly lighting installations and lots of opportunities for families to pause, enjoy, take photos and share.
Think about your budget and if you don’t have a budget, get creative about raising funds
If you have a budget, be realistic about what you can do with the funds available. If no budget exists, there are hundreds of ways to create a budget if you think about the benefits of festive lighting and approach those who are likely to benefit the most.
Stuck for ideas? MK Illumination can help.
Here at MK Illumination, we’ve created extraordinary festive lighting displays for thousands of customers across the globe for over 20 years. From tiny cities with no budget and world-renowned cities with ambitious plans, to internationally recognised department stores and shopping malls, we’ve turned seeds of ideas into spectacular festive lighting installations.
Get in touch with us to arrange a time to get together and we’ll give you a fresh perspective on your space, discuss how to create an experiential festive lighting display that engages and attracts visitors, and give you ideas about how to make the most of your budget, and even how to raise funds, if that’s a challenge!