Next month’s Light Up Lyneham event aims to provide an opportunity for residents to come together and celebrate their neighbourhood, says Lyneham Community Association (LCA) volunteer, event organiser and long-term resident Trevor Vickers.

The free event will take place on August 3, starting at 3pm and finishing at 8pm. Market stalls and performers will be set up at the Lyneham shops, with an evening lantern walk through the wetlands, which will be decorated with temporary illuminated displays.

More than 2000 people attended the event last year, and Trevor says they’re expecting to see higher numbers this year.

“For me, what I really like about it is bumping into people I haven’t seen for a while,” he says.

“It really gives you a sense of belonging to a community and I know other people have said similar things.”

Trevor says that everyone has different reasons for seeking out community, and the Light Up Lyneham event has always been motivated to assist with that.

“Our mission since the beginning has been to build community,” he says.

“For different people at different times, they have different reasons why building community is important to them. 

“Whether it happens to be cost-of-living pressures at the moment or pandemics or whatever, for individual people there’s going to be lots of individual reasons. It could be that they’ve had a death in the family six months ago and this is a good way to help rebuild them back into the community.”

Trevor says Light Up Lyneham has far more humble origins than the performance-packed festival it is today, originally stemming from a Lyneham resident’s enjoyment of the winter lantern walks she attended when spending time in America.

“When she came back to Canberra, she did lantern walks originally with just the family […] and they went around the wetlands and then I think the next year they went with family and friends,” says Trevor.

“And then the third year was family and friends, and friends of friends, and at that point I think she felt it was getting a bit out of hand and she didn’t want to keep organising it, so she came to the Lyneham Community Association, which took it over for the 2017 event.

“And that’s what led to the first Light Up Lyneham, which was a pretty small affair, I think about 600 people came and we thought that was pretty fantastic, we didn’t expect that many people.”

Trevor says the event has continued to grow each year, only being put on pause during the covid lockdown and in 2022 due to insufficient people being available to help organise it. 

All the organisers are volunteers, he says, and many people donate time and skills. 

“When it was only 600 people, there were enough rubbish bins here, but now we have to sign up with the ACT sustainable event [program], […] to get extra rubbish bins and water fountains, and we hire extra toilets,” he says.

“In the beginning, the performers just set up on the pavement sort of thing, but now we hire a professional stage. So we have to hire generators to power that. 

“We’re hiring LED display signs so that people can see what’s going on.

“It just gets bigger and bigger each year, which is great.”

The event will be packed with entertainment, including choirs, world-renowned counter tenor Tobias Cole, a roving magician, circus acts, fire twirlers, and much more.

“Our focus is on local, but we have plenty of outside people as well,” he says.

Despite its significant growth over the years, the event is still very much centred on the lantern walk through the wetlands, led by the Canberra Prosperous Mountain Dragon and Lion Dance group. 

Trevor says this is what makes the event different from other Canberra markets.

“We encourage people to bring the lanterns, and that’s actually one aspect I really like [about] it, that the people who come are part of the spectacle that they come for,” he says.