The Halloween Lantern Carnival is a large scale and spectacular night time event which combines huge local community involvement with the some of the country’s leading outdoor theatre makers, as well as new international guests artists and collaborators. This year’s annual event took place on Sunday 28th October in Sefton Park, Liverpool, drawing audiences of around 10,000.
The event featured a central character, ‘The Dreamer’, a giant sized old lady who floated through the park, watering the dreams of her youth with a giant watering can, passing various bedroom installations en route, before falling asleep in her own bed, where we watched her dreams unfold above her bed, through beautiful projections and live animation.
This year, alongside many of our long term partners, we were delighted to invite new collaborators: Delirium Lumens from France, whose vivid surrealist projections and live animation created the old lady’s dreamscapes, as well as fire alchemists, And Now: a new company forged from The World Famous, whose large scale fire installation illuminated the boating lake. We also partnered with 10 superb local theatre companies and arts organisations, 5 bands/choirs, all of whom created performance and music for the event.
We held lantern making workshops in diverse communities across the city, working in partnership with 30 community groups, and ran our highly acclaimed apprentice artist programme, where emerging artists work alongside our lead artists throughout the project.
The main funders were: Arts Council England, Liverpool City Council and the 2012 Decade of Health and Well Being, and a special Thankyou goes to the hundreds of artists, technicians and volunteers who contributed to the event, without whom it simply could not happen.
