Artists are invited to submit expressions of interest for Blackburn Festival of Light 2017. If you want to work with us to create a wonderful, unique and authentic light and community festival for Blackburn, then we want to hear from you.

Blackburn Festival of Light is in its sixth year. The 2017 event date is Saturday 16th December, with a community lantern parade and a town centre festival atmosphere created by street performers and light installations;  culminating in a fireworks spectacular finale from Walk the Plank.

The Event is delivered by Blackburn Festival of Light CIC  in partnership with Blackburn Business Improvement district (BID) and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, supported by funding from the Big Lottery. Kerris Casey-St.Pierre leads on the artistic programme.

Expressions of Interest

We are looking to programme some additional illuminated street performance and/or installation work to complement our selected core programme for the parade and event night. All proposals should be for work to take place in the town centre, and could be sited or roaming. Advice on available locations will be given. Projects could be installations or performance-based; outdoors (installations potentially could be in shop windows in the run up to the event); and operating between 4pm and 8pm on the night. We are interested in supporting new work and also looking at programming existing work.

All projects should engage with the theme of light and should explore our 2017 theme: Our Town, and be suitable for a family audience. We are particularly keen that projects have an interactive element where possible.

We are also looking to expand our team of local artists able to deliver community lantern making workshops in Blackburn during the run up to the event- thoughout November and early December. There are a number of dates and locations for this work which will be managed by us. Work will be offered on experience and availability and for the set fees available. Materials to be provided by us.

The available opportunities are:

Commissions: Up to £500 for street performance/ installation (3-5 opportunities dependent on cost).

Workshops: Workshop delivery rate of £25 per hour.

Please select the relevant application form on the Make a Submission tab to apply.

Further Information

The Festival:

The Festival is a town centre celebration event. Audiences can join the parade or enjoy experiencing performances, outdoors in the town's open spaces along the parade route and set against the backdrop of the heritage buildings. Ideally any performance events should be repeated several times throughout the evening, be durational or be part of the parade.

On the Saturday evening (16th December) installations / artworks run from 4pm, culminating with the annual fireworks display, fired from The Making Rooms at 7pm. Expected audience: 5,000 +

The Festival is family friendly. Engagement opportunities will be available to audiences and local communities in the lead up to the festival and throughout the weekend.

More information about Blackburn Festival of Light can be found here https://www.facebook.com/BlackburnFestivalofLight/

Locations:

The Festival is located in Blackburn Town centre and all events should be easily reached on foot. Blackburn has some fantastic heritage buildings and open spaces, and pedestrian areas with attractive, wide streets. You may have a location in mind for your project, or you may want us to suggest the sort of location which would work. Please state this in your proposal. Workshops will be at various community venues including community centres, libraries and leisure centres. 

Weather:

Wind and rain is likely to be a factor in December. And, whatever the weather, our audiences will still come. All projects should be weatherproof, or should have a wet weather contingency plan to allow them to go ahead in all but the most extreme weather.

Support:

All projects should be technically self-sufficient and budgets calculated to include all technical requirements. Projects will be supported by the Festival Creative Producer and a Festival Production Manager who will act as a co-ordinator and advisor to participating artists and organisations. All projects will be marketed centrally by the Blackburn Festival of Light.