February isn’t known as a time of celebration and sparkle, but West Lindsay District Council push back the chill with a community focused festival around fire and light. Gainsborough’s Illuminate Festival is an annual event that has just run for the ninth year. It fills the town centre with a parade, projections, and a fire garden, all of which are free and accessible to all
Community focused to the core
Opening with a small parade in Gainsborough town centre, attendees are invited to share in the work of schools and community groups that have been participating in workshops for weeks leading up to the festival. Commercial, Cultural, and Leisure Development Manager Cara Markham, who headed up the event, explained that these community workshops decide the shape of the whole festival.
“The actual infrastructure of the event comes from the workshops that we do before the event. This year we had 21 workshops and they were in all sorts of different communities. We worked with some of the refugees at X-Church. We went into primary schools all over the district, we went into The Men’s Shed, which is a charity group for people suffering with mental health.”
For residents and visitors alike, it is a chance to be reminded of some of Gainsborough’s best features and long history. Attendees are guided towards the beautiful All Saints Parish Church and then on to Gainsborough Old Hall, a gorgeous 15th century building situated just a short walk from the town square. The illuminations at the Old Hall were a particularly well- executed blend of history and technology.
A fiery showstopper
But the showstopper of the Illuminate Festival is undoubtedly the fire garden set up outside All Saints Parish Church. The garden is a mix of colourful lighting that brings the winter-bare trees to life, with fire sculptures and even a performer with a fire whip.
Markham continued: “Everybody absolutely is in awe of the fire garden, every year, it’s very similar every year, and we still get new people and the same people coming back because they don’t see anything else like it. There’s nothing else like this going on in our community over here.”
The festival is led by West Lindsay District Council, with a team of officers (often volunteering time) working with All Saints Parish Church and Gainsborough Old Hall. Additional funding comes from Gainsborough Town Council and the Arts Council England. From bottom to top it is a collaborative project bringing together people from throughout the community.
Cllr Matt Bowles, Chairman of West Lindsay District Council, who took part in the parade, also talked passionately about the event:
“I think you just have to look at the amount of people on the streets, the smiling faces. That just tells you everything you need to know about what it means.”
Bigger and brighter next year
The 2027 event will be the tenth anniversary of the Illuminate Festival and for the first time it will go beyond the town of Gainsborough, down the A631, and into neighbouring Market Rasen. Now that the town has been awarded Pride in Place funding from the government they are hoping to secure funding to make the event brighter and bolder than ever.
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