Let there be light: The best of Scotland’s winter light fsetivals

Festivals across the country are bringing bright lights to the dark nights, and they make for top-notch photo opportunities. In our January magazine we shine the spotlight on some of our favourite pictures.

From the rural woodlands of Beecraigs Country Park to the city trails of Aberdeen, Scotland’s light festivals are illuminating our long winter months.

Pioneered by Perthshire’s Enchanted Forest in 2002, these trails are growing in popularity and are now popping up in every corner of the country. One of the first light festivals in Scotland, the Enchanted Forest started out as a small-scale affair, attracting just a few thousand people to Faskally Wood.

But it now draws in crowds of around 83,000 visitors a year who bathe in swathes of colourful lights as they explore the 1.8km woodland trail, contributing more than £10 million to Scotland’s economy in recent years.

In the north of the country, more than 100,000 people flocked to Aberdeen for Scotland’s Festival of Light, SPECTRA, which brought artists from all over the world together to showcase their dazzling light installations in the Granite City.

And as the midnight chimes ring out over Stonehaven on Hogmanay, men and women parade up and down the High Street swinging fireballs around their heads to welcome in the New Year.

Meanwhile in Edinburgh the changing of the seasons is marked with the Samhuinn Fire Festival, a modern re-imagining of an ancient Celtic festival marking the darkened end of summer and upcoming rise of winter. The story follows the overthrowing of summer by winter, with a dramatic stand-off between their respective kings. Through fiery performance, music and dance, the festival highlights life’s transitions during the changing seasons.

Elsewhere in the city, Edinburgh Castle is given a colourful makeover with immersive displays bringing stories back to life on the castle’s historic walls. Brightening up even the darkest of evenings, these events have now become a regular feature on our winter calendar and are bringing a welcome boost to the tourism sector at a traditionally quiet time.

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