Spilsby Light Night • Spilsby Town Centre Transformed by Light

Over two evenings in early March, something cool, exciting and a little bit different happens in Spilsby as the town centre is transformed into a playground of light, projection, artwork and colour and some of the town’s best-known buildings and landmarks are lit up!

Spilsby Light Night is a project funded primarily by Arts Council England but with extra support from Spilsby Town Council, Spilsby Business Partnership, Spilsby Sessions House and various other local businesses including Acorn Print and Countryside Art.

On each of the two nights there will be a trail of lighting & projection installations spread across the town centre, stretching from Spilsby Sessions House (Spilsby Theatre) in the west to the Spilsby Methodist Church in the East. The installations will include the Methodist Church being lit up with colour and light, a colour clock on the side of the Post Office, the chance to draw ‘digitally’ onto the front of the Sessions House, a series of projected mazes onto the White Hart’s car park and even a piano in the Market place with light tubes next to it that change colour when the piano is played!

Children and adults from across the town have been busy decorating glass jars in all shapes and sizes that will be placed around the steps of the Buttercross in the Market Place and you’ll be able to make your own decorated jar on the nights themselves at a stall near Bijoux Café as well as inside the Methodist Church. At the New Life Church there will be a space-themed Sensory Gazebo made by staff and students from Eresby School and outside you can indulge in some shadow play against the white wall.

Specially commissioned artwork, created by London-based artist Will Lindley, inspired by the Willoughby Chapel in St James’ Church and made with students from King Edward VI Academy and Spilsby Primary Academy, will be projected inside the church – with a mesmerising soundtrack – and outside onto the tower of St James’ Church too. And all of the work made by local students that inspired these pieces will be on display inside the Methodist Church.

Most of the installations will run non-stop throughout the three hours of the event, from 6pm to 9pm, apart from a special piece that Will Lindley has also made that will be projected with soundtrack onto the exterior of Timeless Interiors, inspired by Spilsby’s most famous son Sir John Franklin. This piece will play for 5 minutes every quarter of an hour from 6.30pm until 8.30pm and will also be accompanied by a musical soundtrack.

There will be a number of other smaller installations placed in nooks and crannies around the town, some of which the Different Light organisers hope people will simply stumble across, but stewards and staff will also be handing out flyers with a map that shows them all.

Simon Hollingworth Creative Producer for Spilsby Light Night said: “We really just hope now that people are intrigued enough to want to come out and have a look and get involved. This is a community event and part of the fun will be the conversations that happen between families, individuals, colleagues and friends as they walk round and discuss what they’ve seen and what they liked – and maybe also what they didn’t like! You’ll be able to get ‘light refreshments’ from the Methodist Church, St James Church and the Sessions House as well as pubs, cafes and restaurants along the route, some of which will be opening late for the event.”

Creative Technician Andy Johnson Smith added “We really hope people like what they see, but it’s important to remember that Spilsby Light Night is a pilot project and our hope is that we will learn from this one so that we can come back next year with even bigger and better ideas. We would like to thank everyone from the town who has been so helpful in setting up this event. Everywhere we have gone people have been extraordinarily open and helpful and kind – whether it is hosting in projector in a bedroom, or scanning children’s artwork for us, or just helping us to spread the word about the event, we seem to have been welcomed wherever we’ve gone and that has made our job so much easier.”