What is Christmas at Bute Park?
For those of you who are yet to experience the UK’s biggest-selling light trail outside of London, Christmas at Bute Park is an annual festive installation in the heart of Cardiff. With over 100,000 visitors per year, it has become Wales’ biggest festive light trail, allowing audiences to journey through a spectacular range of illuminations, sculptures and special effects.
Christmas at Bute Park is delivered by From the Fields, an agency which organises contemporary festive experiences across UK cities. Each of their light trails aims to immerse audiences in an audio-visual experience which can be playful and fun, or bold and striking.
Opportunity to design an installation for this year’s light trail in Cardiff
This year, From the Fields has announced a design commission for Wales-based artists. This is part of the Ignite Cymru scheme, supported by Event Wales.
From the Fields Creative Producer, Lizzie Rayner, said:
We are so excited to be able to offer these two great opportunities as part of the Ignite Cymru scheme. It is so important to us that Welsh artists are being represented and championed within winter events. Wales has such an abundance of incredible creative talent, we look forward to being able to highlight it at Wales' largest light trail where we hope to welcome over 100,000 visitors for the fourth year running.
Commission details
From The Fields is offering designers / artists or group of artists the opportunity to create their own installation for Christmas at Bute Park 2025. Supported by their creative management and production team, the artists will be offered the opportunity to experience creating an installation for an immersive light trail that they would then be able to take on and display at other light trails or similar events.
The project will offer the following opportunities to support the development of any work:
- Meeting with the Creative team behind Christmas at Bute Park
- Tour of the site
- Creative brief
- Support and guidance
- Invite to preview the installations ahead of the site opening
The budget for this project is £10,000.
Find out more and download the brief.
Creative Cardiff Manager, Carys Bradley-Roberts, said:
Creative Cardiff is thrilled to be working with From the Fields again this year to support this exciting commission opportunity. This is a wonderful chance for a designer, artist or group to gain practical skills and experience in immersive public art with the support of Christmas at Bute Park's experienced team. The artists selected as part of this project in 2024 produced two fantastic designs and we can't wait to see what's developed for 2025's trail!
More information
There are two possible locations within Bute Park that could be used for an installation, the first is the foundations of the old Priory. As this is a hard standing area we would need look to weight any installations.
The second area is a cluster of trees to the left of the path. You may look to use the overhead space, the grassed areas, the edges of the path or the trees themselves.
We strongly recommend that you look at the space in person. The what3 word locations for the proposed areas are as follows:
Location 1: boat.learn.noisy
Location 2: dirt.stole.spend
If you require any further information about these commissions, download the briefing pack– or email Lizzie@fromthefields.co.uk
The deadline for both opportunities is 15 August 17:00.
