Iconic streets and buildings became a pedestrian playground

At Oxford Circus, closed to traffic for the event, people lay on their backs gazing up at 1.8 London, Janet Echelman’s beautifully illuminated aerial sculpture that was strung between buildings.

Along a pedestrianised Regent Street, crowds gathered to see Groupe LAPS/Thomas Veyssiére’s Keyframes, LED stick men, moving in sequence in celebration of retro video games and Elephantastic!, a 3D, larger-than-life projected elephant stomping through the Air Street arch. At Westminster Abbey, audiences stood mesmerised by The Light of the Spirit, a digital painting by French artist Patrice Warrener, who had bathed the Abbey’s West Gate in an electric riot of colour.

In Carnaby, on Broadwick Street, visitors gathered around Julian Opie’s animated LED monolith, Shaida Walking. The piece was commissioned as a permanent installation for the area.

Aquarium, Benedetto Bufalino & Benoit Deseille’s iconic red telephone box filled with exotic fish at Grosvenor Square, was a firm festival favourite, drawing audiences to the leafy garden square in Mayfair. The square was also home to Elaine Buckholtz’s abstract digital painting, Spinning Night in Living Colour.

Hundreds of Londoners of all ages played their part in the festival: from donating a recycled plastic bottle to the glowing Plastic Islands installation by Luzinterruptus in the Trafalgar Square fountains, to appearing on film in the spectacular Circus of Light projected onto the Granary Building at King’s Cross. 500 children also took part in workshops at schools in the area to help make Joining the Dots and Litre of Light, both also at King’s Cross.