UPDATE: West End Lights 2023 will take place on 1 December 2023! Mark it in your diaries already and put your thinking caps one!

What is West End Lights?

Lincoln West End Lights is one night in the year when we turn the front of our houses into film screens and light up the streets with images, moving shadows and short films to delight and enchant residents and surprised passersby.

It started on a cold winter’s night in December 2010. The West End of Lincoln was unusually quiet. Its streets closed to traffic because of a deep covering of snow but from nine houses lights shone out into the winter’s night. Those who braved the ice and cold saw an angel flying in York Avenue and a Lincolnshire Boggart hiding his treasures in Moor Street.

In 2011 films, shadow plays, lanterns and words glowed from 26 houses. Families collected on corners to watch shoals of fish dancing, stories unfolding before them and fleeting images from Lincoln’s past appear and melt away.

If you want to be one of our illuminators in 2023, join as an illuminator, read our tips and tricks, or check our gallery for inspiration.

West End Lights 2022 took place on December 2nd, 2022

Thanks to the more than 35 illuminators who lit up their houses. There was a fantastic atmosphere all around. Head over to our gallery or our instagram and facebook pages for some impressions of West End Lights 2022. We are already looking forward to WEL 2023! The 2022 illuminators map is still available to look back at this marvellous night.

A brief introduction of Lincoln West End Lights, recorded in 2017 by the University of Lincoln’s Student Life Team.

Social Media

Follow us also on social media:

Twitter @westendlights
Instagram @lincoln_west_end_lights
Facebook /lincolnwestendlights