The grandest of grade-listed buildings, strikingly contrast against neon-soaked strobe beams. Pulsating technicolour displays welcoming wanderers from afar. An explosion of colour, illuminating a city alive with the buzz from an electric assortment of activities. One special Liverpool arts and culture event surely lights up more faces than any other…
There’s nothing quite like Liverpool’s ‘River of Light’ – A true ‘shining example’ of the colourful cultural event our city is world-famous for. Year on year, the event’s following grows, fast becoming one of our most celebrated and spectacular cultural highlights.
With trails, waves, rainbows and runways alongside all manner of ambitious big scale installations, Liverpool’s ‘River of Light’ weaves people through our city centre, with a warm welcoming glow that seems to welcome the seasons ahead.
Last year’s event, held from 22 October – 7 November 2022, seemed determined to one-up the year before and succeeded admirably. So how does the event really perform for the city and what’s in store for this year’s event?
Marketing Liverpool’s Roz Lloyd attends Liverpool’s ‘River of Light’ 2021 with her son Jamie.
Marketing Liverpool Marketing Manager, Roz Lloyd tells us more about this special event’s enduring success and Culture Liverpool team’s hopes to take things even further for 2022.
“It’s definitely one of the most creative events I’ve worked on. The sheer scale, the numbers of partners and artists involved. The technical and logistical aspects of just putting the event of are immense, but it’s totally worth it, because people love it so much.
“It’s all thanks to Culture Liverpool, who regularly design and deliver a full schedule of our city’s impressive array of cultural events. This is now my third year on the project and I love working on it. I think ‘River of Light’ is a great introduction to Autumn/Winter in Liverpool.”
Last year, together with partners, Roz worked to market the event to families from across the North West and North of England, across media above and below the line, conducting research into the event’s glowing and growing reputation, whilst swiftly adapting their plan to ensure that all possible covid safety requirements were met.
“To reach wide audiences, the marketing for ‘River of Light’ covers everything from flags and banners to Facebook posts and our media partnerships ensure that the event is well represented in radio and print too. As a marketer, I love to see and evaluate the different impacts of different strands of a campaign and adapt budgets accordingly, so it’s great to get the opportunity to work on all these campaigns.
“I knew from the anecdotal feedback I received during the event that people were having a great time, so I was excited to see the results of our quantitative market research but I was blown away. Around 90 per cent of those surveyed gave ‘River of Light’ a rating of ‘excellent’ or ‘good’. More than 70 per cent of people were ‘extremely likely’ to recommend the event to a friend, which is fantastic.”
Roz’s marketing career covers corporate marketing, B2B, digital and print for a variety of prominent Liverpool based organisations but ‘River of Light’ is still among her all-time favourite projects.
“I loved working with Culture Liverpool. They’re a great, fun and creative team, but also incredibly dedicated and hard-working, so it’s exciting to work with them. I also enjoy working on projects that involve VisitLiverpool. The brand has such a powerful reach and broad audience to tap into and that’s essential to an event like this, which we believe has the potential to become an internationally significant art and culture event.
New details of ‘River of Light 2022’ have recently been announced and Roz is excited about this year’s event:
“Ideally, we really want people to come to ‘River of Light’ and stay overnight in the city and experience more of Liverpool, so we’re working on that. We’ve pretty much got the family market covered and one thing about River of Light is that it’s not just a light a show or a series of illuminations that you passively watch. It’s immersive and you feel part of it and I think that’s a really important distinction.”
“River of Light’ is art in motion and we work with artists who paint with light. We bring people into and around our city, signposted with light, featuring art that actually says something about Liverpool. So we think there’s an opportunity to attract more creative people to the city, through the event.
“Artists, designer-makers, craft people, people who love to be inspired and cultural visitors seeking something fun that will also make them think a bit. River of Light is a colourful, fun event for all the family and something that sparks the imagination too.”
For more information on ‘River of Light’ 2022 click HERE.