please empty your brain below

Interesting, on the one hand you have the need for tourist cash during a quiet January (London as a theme park), on the other the hard pressed commuter who contributes business related cash (London as a world business centre), plus the poor sod who is travelling via London, and has to negotiate around the chaos.

I think 'zone of hell' should be adopted for any planned disruption.
Empathise with those adversely affected; expect local news outlets will make a huge deal of the impact rather than the benefits. Already had this pencilled in for Saturday; however the exciting prospect of ranging freely along Oxford St etc. during the road closure may necessitate revision.
Went to see the show in Durham last October, it was a good evening's entertainment despite steady rain.
Traffic was chaos in Durham so plan your trip well and expect to be shuffling around in slow moving queues as you move between installations if it gets the publicity it deserves.
Thanks for the heads up - I'll definitely be making the trip.
But that's not all. I've been checking the Canary Wharf website to see if they'll be repeating the Winter Lights festival they had last year and the good news is 'yes' - it'll be running from 11 - 22 January
http://canarywharf.com/arts-events/
Sorry, posted ^ before looking at the Lumiere download and seeing it's actually already mentioned on there.
In fact, the idea for a winter Festival of Lights comes from France, specifically Lyon, where it's become so extraordinarily successful as an off-season tourist attraction that other European cities have begun to latch on.

In 2014, Lyon's Fête des Lumières attracted no less than 4 million visitors, a significant boon for the local economy: it's taken place every year since 1989 on the weekend of Dec 8, in honour of (St) Mary, having started in 1850 as a purely religious celebration.

I went this year - it was cancelled at the last minute because of security concerns following the Paris atrocities...
I bet the Blackpool Illuminations got there before Lyons?
Apparently the Blackpool Illuminations didn't start until 1879, somewhat after Lyon.

There will be another "son et lumière" at the Guildhall in London in March.
I expect quite a few of those "hard pressed commuters" may also take the opportunity to enjoy visiting Lumiere after work before heading home. Events like this are one of the benefits of working in a great city like London.










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