Drone Display to Launch Scarborough Lights Festival

More details have been revealed about Scarborough's new Light Festival in November.

The brand-new festive event, called Scarborough Lights, is the first event in the new Scarborough Fair programme and will run from
15 November through to 23 December, with a number of light displays across the town.

Scarborough Lights will formally open with a launch event on the 18 November with a drone display over Scarborough Castle.

Nick Lane, a writer at Stephen Joseph Theatre has created a script celebrating Scarborough’s history, past, present and future to launch Scarborough Lights. The show is viewable from South Bay but the best view is from the Castle.

A brand-new winter lights trail will see Peasholm Park illuminated "like never before" with artists locally and from across the UK and Europe involved in creating the display. The international artists are coming from Belgium, Netherlands, Hungary and Slovakia. The trail will run from 4pm – 10pm daily, 15 November through to 22 December.

The light festival will also include a brand-new installation at St Mary’s Church, featuring light artworks by Flemish artist Peter Snijder. The Fading Light of Ruins will see St Mary’s Church transformed into a spectacle of light between 16-30 November.

Scarborough Sparkle and Lantern Parade will return for 2023, offering a magical and enchanting Christmas wonderland at Scarborough Open Air Theatre between 24 – 26 November. The theatre will host around 35 themed stalls, entertainment will include a Ferris wheel, teacups, hook a duck, MEGA fun house and an illuminated land train.

As part of the festival Scarborough Harbour will see fishing vessels and yachts all lit up at sea on November 14th as Scarborough Yacht Club organise a gleaming display in the harbour including illumination of the lighthouse.

Drift-Lit at Scarborough Train Station will run from 2 – 9 December between 6pm-7pm. The exhibition by local artist Paul Elsam will showcase sculptures made from Yorkshire driftwood that has been dried, cleaned and restored and dramatically lit to create light installations.

The team behind the event say that across Scarborough, illuminations will sparkle and light up some of the town's most loved places to visit from 4pm through till 10pm each day between 15 November – 23 December including the Town Hall, Rotunda Museum, Scarborough Spa and Scarborough Castle.

There is more information about the light festival at a new website launched today https://scarboroughfair.uk/about-scarborough-lights/

The festival will be staged from Wednesday, November 15, until Saturday, December 23. It is the first event as part of the Scarborough Fair cultural initiative, which is being funded by £1.2 million from the Government’s Towns Fund programme.

The fair, which was last held in the 18th century, is being revived as a year-round programme of arts, heritage, music and sports events and is expected to run until 2026.

The overarching strategy of the Scarborough Fair project is to bring significant economic benefits to the coast with better quality jobs and training as well as involving communities to help tackle social deprivation.

It is also hoped that the events will help create a year-round visitor economy for the county, which is a major ambition of North Yorkshire Council.

North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for arts and culture, Cllr Simon Myers, said:

“Scarborough Lights represents a milestone for us in bringing a greater breadth of arts and cultural events to North Yorkshire.

“First and foremost, it is an event that we hope will be fun and entertaining for communities in Scarborough as well as bringing in thousands more people to the town.

“But there will hopefully be longer-term benefits for the town, both economically and socially, as part of Scarborough Fair’s programme of events.

“It is an ambition of North Yorkshire Council to make sure that we can bring better jobs and help improve people’s opportunities to all communities in the county, and the launch of such a major programme of arts and cultural events is a clear indication of our commitment to this.”

Scarborough Lights will involve 15 events and light artworks from the UK and across Europe, many of which are in England for the first time, at 13 venues across the town. A total of 10 of the events and installations will have free admission.

The director of Scarborough Fair, Julian Caddy, has worked as an organiser of arts festivals and events for more than 25 years, including a stint as venue producer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

He began the role in Scarborough in June after leaving his previous position as the chief executive officer of Brighton Fringe, which he held for more than a decade.

Brighton Fringe is England’s largest annual cultural festival and saw more than 4,000 performances in 124 venues last year, with an estimated attendance of 400,000 people and an economic impact of £14 million for the local economy.

Mr Caddy said:

“This is a ground-breaking initiative for Scarborough and will revive a festival that may have been last held back in the 18th century but which is still famous around the world.

“It is a real opportunity for Scarborough to see a wide range of benefits, and the Scarborough Lights festival is the first step in a journey which we hope will involve as many communities as possible, bringing arts and culture to the town and attracting visitors from across the country and beyond.”