A lightbulb moment on the Royal Mile

“The idea is to bring people up to that part of the city; it’s there to make a statement,” says Charlie Wood, founder of Edinburgh’s Underbelly, who is bringing his marketing nous to a new festival set to light up the Royal Mile over the Christmas period.

And make a statement it surely will. Constructed along 24 arches, from the Tron Kirk to the City Chambers, and rising in places to a height of 19 metres, an array of 60,000 individual lights will bring the city’s Old Town to life reminiscent of, frankly, the more luminous New Town.

“It came from lots of people saying you should bring the success of Edinburgh’s Christmas from the New Town up to the Old Town – so that’s what we’re doing,” says Charlie, who was approached by the Royal Mile Business Association to try and generate a bit of a ‘wow’ factor – and, crucially, sales – for High Street traders over the festive season.

“It totally makes sense; I was up there myself on a Tuesday evening during last year’s Christmas event. I was just walking along, on a dry night, and the street was completely empty, at 8:30pm. I thought it was ridiculous; this is one of the greatest streets in the world and it should be filled at Christmas time.”

The Street of Light festival is being brought to Edinburgh courtesy of an Italian company, De Cagna. Charlie came across their walk-under street lighting displays on a visit to Las Fallas, a traditional celebration held in commemoration of Saint Joseph in the Spanish city of Valencia, in March.

The festival is a celebration of the end of winter and the beginning of spring, and takes over the whole city. Gigantic papier mâché puppets are hoisted high above roundabouts – of all places – and are then filled with fireworks, and on the final night are detonated.

“It’s pretty terrifying,” says Charlie. “But it really is the most extraordinary thing – the whole city is behind it and it’s very community driven; and the Church does a parade to the city centre; every roundabout gets used for something.”

Charlie adds that the company, who are bussing the entire set across Europe to Edinburgh, first introduced the lighting displays on two streets in Valencia 10 years ago, building “amazing architectural installations” on wooden frames, then filling them with different coloured lights; a few years later the lights were synchronised with music.

That is a theme very much in mind for Charlie’s vision for Edinburgh. He recruited four of the city’s choirs to record songs, whose music will be amplified across the High Street.

But there is no actual switch on, not a celebrity pressing a button in sight. Instead the lights will come on with the very first performance on St Andrews Day on November 30th and run until December 24th. “I think Christmas is a time for family and community and to bring that angle in to the event I very much wanted the music to come from the city and the community,” says Charlie.