- Covent Garden welcomes a brand-new, festive lighting display to its Seven Dials neighbourhood this Christmas
- From 12th November, the installation will weave through the streets, celebrating the iconic Seven Dials Monument and shining bright within bustling Neal’s Yard. The streets of Seven Dials, including Monmouth Street and Earlham Street will feature unique curving light canopies suspended overhead, creating a seamless tunnel of warm light from end to end
- Seven Dials is a unique corner of London famed for its star-shaped layout. Blending tradition with modernity and amplifying the area’s historic charm, the new Seven Dials lights cascade out from the iconic sundial, a flow of light drawing the eye up and down each street.
- Designed in collaboration with creative production and design studio Sculptivate, the innovative installations add a further 150,000 LED lights to the neighbourhood, complementing the iconic Market Building’s Christmas lights and decorations, which features 40 gigantic bells with bows, 12 baubles, 8 spinning mirror balls and over 29 miles of gold leaf suspended in the air, along with Covent Garden’s famous Christmas Tree in the Piazza
- Having worked closely on creative projects together for years, Covent Garden briefed Sculptivate with bring to life a lights scheme that created a sense of cosiness throughout Seven Dials and was sympathetic to the unique and historic character of its streets.
- It was important the lights were environmentally conscious. With 80 percent of CO2 emissions from lighting products generated during production phase, Sculptivate worked with a supplier using low-carbon aluminium, cutting emissions by 75 percent. The lights are also designed for easy recyclability, ensuring sustainability throughout their lifecycle.
- Sustainable LED lighting, replacing traditional tungsten bulbs, significantly reduces energy usage in line with Covent Garden and Sculptivate’s eco-friendly ethos. Materials used for the curtain-like eaved structure are designed to last for years to come.
- Covent Garden’s world-famous Christmas Lights switch on takes place Tuesday 12th November.
Covent Garden is delighted to announce the unveiling of brand-new Christmas lights for Seven Dials, designed by renowned creative design studio, Sculptivate. This year’s lighting installation seamlessly illuminates Covent Garden and Seven Dials, creating a warm and cohesive atmosphere across the destination that blends tradition with modernity, enhancing the historic charm of the neighbourhood. Starting at the iconic Seven Dials monument, encircling the famous sundial, canopies of lights cascade down each adjoining street, moving in wave like patterns that offer the perfect background to your Christmas experiences in Seven Dials.
The brief: sustainability meets design excellence
Sculptivate is a global design and production agency who deliver projects from ideation through to activation with both creativity and technical rigour. Having previously worked with global luxury brands, Sculptivate has an eye for translating retail experiences into memorable moments. At the start of the year, Covent Garden briefed Sculptivatewith creating Christmas lights that not only unified the diverse streetscapes of Seven Dials and Covent Garden but created a cosy atmosphere and were environmentally conscious.
“We’ve collaborated with Covent Garden for years on various installations. Our challenge was to honour its rich history while capturing the area’s unique creativity in an immersive design that complements the broader lighting and Bells in The Market Building and importantly, was environmentally conscious and not wasteful,” said Rebecca Menzies, Creative Director, Sculptivate.
The new design needed to prioritise longevity and energy efficiency. With 80 percent of CO2 emissions from use of lighting products occurring during production, both parties wanted to find a way to minimise this. Using innovative materials, Covent Garden and Sculptivate worked with a lighting product supplier who was able to make significant reductions to its carbon footprint by introducing a low-carbon aluminium option to their production, meaning a 75 percent reduction in emissions when compared to standard aluminium. The lighting products are not only designed to last for years to come but designed for recyclability too, with components that can be easily disassembled and recycled at the end of their lifespan.
Sculptivate drew design inspiration from European cities, where in historic market streets you’ll find canopies of organic illumination breathing life into the area. After months of design sessions, sketches and renders, and extensive research including the mapping of each street and its buildings, the result is a magnificent combination of technology and design, cascading tunnels of lights creating a warm winter glow.
Inspiration and process: Design that celebrates architectural integrity
Extensive on-street research was carried out, mapping Seven Dials at varying times of day to understand how light naturally flows through the area. The design evolved to ensure that the lights accentuate the architecture without overpowering it, and the team landed on utilising both horizontal and vertical elements to work with the varied street widths, those with and without trees and different building heights.
“We wanted to create spaces that people would want to spend time in this winter, thinking about how we bring the streets alive at night in a way that immerses you in the area, with the decoration becoming almost a backdrop to your experience. Given the challenge of each street being slightly different in width, height and structure, we landed on the canopy concept, with curtain-like waves of light that combine intimate, low lighting moments with high-impact displays that celebrate the unique architecture of Seven Dials,” added Rebecca Menzies, Creative Director, Sculptivate.
Once the design was signed off, then begins the process of production. Taking 20 weeks, the canopy nets are handmade and woven into curtain like sections to allow for ease and speed of installation. Each section is made of twisted cord, similarly, woven to that of a tapestry, with the bulbs then placed within the twists, each facing a different direction to avoid a too linear lighting experience and allowing a more textured lighting quality. The cords create an organic glow, with warm, golden LED lights ensuring the intricate design enhances, rather than overwhelms, the cobbled streets and stone buildings.
Installation: Protecting one of London’s ‘great public ornaments’
Sculptivate’s teams will tackle installation in pairs, with one team working at street level preparing the decorations and another working at height installing each cable and curtain. At the start of install, cables will be attached and tensioned to rigs on certain buildings, and the curtains of light will be hooked and attached to the cables. With lighting tests and safety checks, the whole process can take up to a week. One of the most striking features of the lights is the way the lights encircle the iconic Seven Dials monument and dial without touching it, coming away from and cascading down each adjoining street, either moving in the wave-like or zig zag pattern suitable for a particular street’s structure.
The dial was a hugely important consideration throughout the whole process, due to its protection as cared for by the Seven Dials Trust. Seven Dials as an area was originally laid out by Thomas Neale MP in the early 1690s, who commissioned leading stonemason, Edward Pierce, to design and construct the Sundial Pillar in 1693 as the centrepiece of his Seven Dials development. At that time, it was regarded as one of London’s ‘great public ornaments’, and today remains one of London’s most important landmarks. Neighbours include iconic West End theatre The Cambridge Theatre, home to multi award winning production Matilda the Musical, eco-conscious French footwear brand Veja and Swedish sneaker and streetwear powerhouse Axel Arigato. The new lighting design by Sculptivate incorporates “negative space” around the dial, protecting its historical integrity while achieving a faceted diamond-shape canopy of lights that fill the night sky and harmonise with the area’s character.
Innovation: Modern festive moods & future proofing
The design is something not seen before in Seven Dials, creating pathways of light that guide visitors through the streets and harmonise with Covent Garden’s wider Christmas lights. What Sculptivate has brought to life is a design that moves away from traditional Christmas icons, focusing instead on creating warm, immersive experiences. The lights, which extends to Neal’s Yard with its own canopy of light, also reflects the Christmas trees in the area which will have the same organic light designs, further unifying the experience.
Shaftesbury Capital and Sculptivate’s collaboration embodies their shared values of sustainability and innovative design. Using energy-efficient LED lights, the design is fully scalable, allowing it to be adapted across different streets in future installations. This flexible, modern approach ensures the lighting will remain relevant for many years to come.
“Covent Garden has always been committed to world-leading design, so this festive season we wanted to push the boundaries of what Christmas lighting can achieve, both aesthetically and technically. We’ve always been at the forefront of creative, innovative experiences, whether that be offering free public art such as our Little Cloud World installation earlier this year or working with brands on immersive pop-ups, like Jo Malone’s forthcoming interactive ‘Christmas Special’. We couldn’t be more excited that Christmas is back and to be giving Seven Dials a scheme which enriches the unique characteristics of the destination and offers a new cinematic experience that draws visitors into Covent Garden,” said Catherine Riccomini, Director of Marketing and Communications, Shaftesbury Capital.
Covent Garden will be switching on the Christmas Lights within the historic Marketing Building, surrounding streets and Seven Dials, as well as illuminating its world-famous Christmas Tree on Tuesday 12th November, kick starting the neighbourhood’s 7 week festive-filled programme.
