Fun and bright times ahead as culture crawl LightNight returns

By Dawn Collinson
MORE than 900 artists and performers will come together on Friday May 19 for Liverpool’s eighth annual LightNight ‘culture crawl’.
Based on this year’s theme of Time, the city will be filled with over 100 free night-time cultural events, including eight new artist commissions.
Festival organisers Open Culture have created a diverse programme featuring arts organisations and venues from the mainstream – including Tate Liverpool, the Everyman, Philharmonic Hall and FACT – to the more unusual, such as the National Oceanography Centre at Liverpool University.
The Unity Theatre, on Hope Place, is planning a reawakening ceremony to mark its reopening to the public after a £845,000 redevelopment, while the Phil opens its main auditorium for a LightNight first, staging a full evening of performances.
Liverpool John Moores University, the festival’s main sponsor, will have a programme of activities across its campus including Time, Space and Climate Change at the John Foster Building in which experts will explore the vastness of space, past climates and the probable future impact of climate change.
Both cathedrals will become performance venues for the night, with a mass singing workshop at Liverpool Cathedral and a commemorative light art performance in collaboration with the cathedral choir.
And, in addition to indoor venues, there will be street drumming, theatre, puppetry and music, as well as light art installations at the Metropolitan Cathedral, Victoria Gallery & Museum, and FACT.
LightNight will reach an after-party finale with a ticketed installation/club project at Constellations, raising funds for the 2018 event.
A printed LightNight guide with the full line-up of events and articles is available, priced £3, and listings can be found online at www.lightnightliverpool.co.uk
With more than 100 events to choose from, spread right across the city centre and down to the waterfront, a bit of planning is needed to get the most out of the night and not miss anything you fancy.
To make things a little easier, here’s Good News’ guide to just some of the highlights and tips for where you can enjoy a bit to eat or a coffee while you’re there (if you have any time to spare!) …
- Liverpool Samba School, 9.30pm-10.15pm, Exchange Flags
- LJMU Screen School Candlelit Labyrinth, 5pm-11pm, Northern Lights, Cains Brewery Village, 5 Mann Street
- A Living Timeline, 5pm-10pm, Town Hall
- Here be Dragons, 8.45pm-10.15pm, Steble Fountain, William Brown Street
- Rubber Duck Orchestra, 7pm-7.45pm & 8.15pm-9pm, Philharmonic Hall, Hope Street
- The Man Behind Dredd, 7pm-8.30pm, UoL Victoria Gallery & Museum, Ashton Street
- Time To Taste Liverpool Scran, 5pm-10pm, Blackburne House, Hope Street
- The Super Sonic Assembly, 6.45pm-11pm, Liverpool Cathedral