Lumenaura, a new downtown light festival in Aurora, opened Friday and will run through Nov. 1.
It includes light and sound installations throughout downtown, interactive street art, live entertainment, futuristic projection mapping and a variety of food and beverage options.
The free, family-friendly event invites attendees to explore portals to the past, future, across space, by the use of light, according to city officials.
While the light features will be downtown for a month, there will be a three-day weekend celebration Oct. 11 through Oct. 13.
The celebration will include a state-of-the-art drone show, live entertainment, roving performers, live street art, food trucks, a beer garden, workshops and more, officials said.
“Lumenaura will help Aurora live up to its nickname of the City of Lights,” said Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin. “We look forward to lighting up downtown Aurora and bringing visitors from near and far to witness the magic.”
Jenn Byrne, city director of Aurora Public Art, said the inspiration for the event came from a 2022 national conference on public art, technology and economic development.
“There, I had an opportunity to learn about the production logistics and broader economic impact of a public art light festival,” she said. “With our historic downtown on the river, an expanding arts scene, and our history as the ‘City of Lights,’ it was too good not to pursue.”
Cities such as Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Scottsdale, Arizona have hosted similar festivals in the past, as well international ones in Berlin, Sydney, and Lyon, France.
The event’s monthlong art installations include: the Sonic Runway, which transforms audio signals into patterns of light, shooting down a 400-foot corridor of 23 LED-lined arches at the speed of sound; The Pool, an interactive field of concentric circles that create a light landscape for visitors to run, walk, dance, jump, and play across; EXPosure, an installation enabling visitors to create light-art selfies on a monumental sphere by simply illuminating themselves with a personal flashlight or smartphone; Shadowing, a public artwork tracing paths as pedestrians pass under the light of a city lamppost while the same lamp projects the shadow of a path walked previously by another; and Barrel boy and family, a collection of sculptures made from opaque plastic drums, standing as tall as 17 feet.
For Lumenaura fest weekend, Inside Straight Productions has curated a lineup of roving and tertiary entertainment to greet attendees with dancers, jugglers, musicians and sideshow performers at every turn. Additionally, visitors can participate in scavenger hunts, light painting, virtual reality drone flights and hidden portal discovery quests.
There will be main state entertainment each of three nights of Oct. 11, 12 and 13, featuring dancers, acrobats, R&B and Hip-Hop cover bands, fire dancers, jugglers, tribune bands, DJs and a lighted drone display.
Lumenaura is costing the city about $214,500, and about $141,800 of was paid by the city. The other $72,700 came from a state grant.
More information on the festival, and programs occurring at the art installations, is available online at experiencelumenaura.com.