Overview
It's already nicknamed the River City. It's also locked in for a stint as an Olympic city. Now, Queensland's capital will become the shimmering city, too, thanks to a new long-term after-dark light show. When Lumina Night Walk makes Brisbane its latest home, it'll get the Botanic Gardens at Mt Coot-tha aglow — and it won't just be sticking around for a few weeks or months.
Brisbane City Council has announced that it approved an application on Friday, July 28 to establish a Lumina Night Walk in the inner-west spot, and for 150 evenings per year. The plan is to get the gardens looking luminous on Friday and Saturday nights, and also likely during school holidays, with attendees peering at eight light show stations across a one-kilometre path.
The site's existing Gardens Explorer Trail will get the Lumina Night Walk treatment, with the light show stations being camouflaged from view. BCC advises that no plants or trees will be removed for the new attraction.
Although no opening date has yet been announced, visitors will take 50–60 minutes to enjoy the experience, with between four and six sessions held every ten minutes each night that Brisbane's Lumina Night Walk runs.
The River City joins seven locations in Canada, three in Japan, one in Singapore and another in France in boasting a Lumina Night Walk. Moment Factory, which keeps hosting radiant pop-ups to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens as part of the South Australian capital's winter Illuminate Adelaide festival, will design and produce the light show. The company's standard remit: getting botanical gardens, zoos, national parks and heritage sites dazzling, aka exactly what it's bringing to Brisbane.
Brissie's Lumina Night Walk will be funded, installed and operated by Australian company LightDreaming, and BCC advises that the revenue that the council receives from LightDreaming will be put back into the gardens. And, it expects that taking a lit-up stroll will be popular, increasing the Mt Coot-tha location's visitors by up to 15 percent per year.
Brisbane does love an excuse to bask in a glow, as Roma Street Parkland's annual end-of-year Enchanted Garden keeps proving to sellout crowds. Over at the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, after-dark fest Botanica: Contemporary Art Outside shines a light — many, many lights — each year, too. And, during 2023's Brisbane Festival this September, Lightscape will come to town, setting up a two-kilometre trail of light and colour also at the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens on Alice Street in the CBD.
Of course, shimmering sights aren't just a Brisbane favourite, as Lightscape's stints in Melbourne and Brisbane have proven, plus everything bathing both cities in radiance during their respective RISING and Vivid fests.
Brisbane's Lumina Night Walk is planned as a tourist drawcard in the lead up to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as one of many changes sweeping the city before, during and after the global sporting events.
"Brisbane is Australia's fastest growing capital city and a world class night-time experience such as Lumina Night Walks will create more to see and do and make Brisbane an even better place to live and visit," said Deputy Mayor and Civic Cabinet Chair for Economic Development Councillor Krista Adams about the approved application.
Among the other changes headed Brisbane's way: a two-level pavilion with a gin distillery and rooftop garden at The Summit atop Mt Coot-tha; a 100-metre-tall Sky Deck at the new Queen's Wharf precinct in the CBD; tearing down and rebuilding the Gabba; renewing and reinvigorating South Bank, complete with a treetop walk, a permanent handmade goods market and new riverside lawns; and making over Victoria Park. And, there's also the revamping and expanding of Northshore Hamilton, adding a new seven-hectare riverside parkland to South Brisbane, opening a fifth theatre at QPAC, and Kangaroo Point's new green bridge with an overwater bar and restaurant.
Brisbane's Lumina Night Walk doesn't yet have an opening date, but will run 150 nights per year, on Friday and Saturday nights and during school holidays. Keep an eye on the Lumina website for further details.
Images: Lumina.