Christmas 2022 is officially underway in Wales after its premier festive lights trail opened its doors to the public for a second year, with a host of new sights in tow.
Christmas at Bute Park is back and brighter than ever this winter, with a specially composed soundtrack and a UK premiere in cutting-edge lighting design as its grand finale.
A host of familiar faces have joined visitors in becoming the first people in the UK to witness the brand-new iridescent orb experience ‘Prismatic’, created by leading lighting designer DBN Audile, during the course of its opening weekend in Cardiff city centre.
Special guests including broadcaster Polly James – who took time out from covering Wales’ World Cup journey as co-presenter of Late Night Football Club with ex-Welsh international Robbie Savage to attend the event – were among the first to glimpse the 2022 trail, alongside the face of GoCompare, Wynne Evans, and 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas, who also visited during the course of the opening weekend.
Now, up to 150,000 visitors are expected to follow in their footsteps during the trail’s five-week run in Wales’ capital city, after a team of 25 technicians spent more than two weeks installing over one million twinkling lights to create the breath-taking spectacular.
Roxy Robinson, Creative Director at the company behind the trail, From The Fields, said: “We’re over the moon to be kicking off the festivities here in the heart of Wales with the launch of Christmas at Bute Park 2022, and thrilled that so many people could join us in marking the occasion too.”
“We’re particularly delighted to have joined forces with a host of home-grown creatives to make sure our 2022 event shines brighter than ever, and are beyond excited to be unveiling a specially composed soundtrack from students at the Royal Welsh College of Music, alongside a range of installations by visual artists and creatives from across Wales.”
Christmas at Bute Park takes visitors on a tour of festive delight around one of the capital city’s most beloved landmarks and through the biggest Christmas lights trail on offer in Wales, with the 2022 event now open to visitors, following a sell-out debut in 2021.
As such, Bute Park has been taken over by a magical ‘Light Canyon’ awash with a thousand stars, a lake of light created by hypnotic lasers to create a ‘Liquid Sky’ and so much more after the trail’s creators laid out around 8km of cabling in order to achieve it.
Roxy said: “It’s also been another epic effort from our hard-working crew on-site to make sure Wales’ biggest festive lights trail is back for another amazing year, and such a rewarding moment to be opening our doors to the public once more.”
“Now we’re ready to share the experience we have all come together to create with the thousands of visitors set to step into Christmas at Bute Park over the coming weeks and enjoy the magic for themselves.”
This year, there is also an even wider range of food and drink producers and a newly extended area for toasting marshmallows too.
Greek Meating Point, Yorkshire PuddingWraps, Pizza Scorchinis, Hot Dogs Gourmet Griddle, Indian Keralan Karavan, Brownies Chock Shop, Smoking Griddle Cardiff, Churros Hermanos and a host of other suppliers are also among the new food offerings for 2022.
