GlasGlow returns to Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens and here’s a first look before the official opening
Glasgow’s annual West End light show is set to open at the end of this week, with this year’s theme being 80s movies.
Here’s a first look as the team make final preparations.
Here’s a first look as the team make final preparations.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I'm in it. Sorry, I did you.
00:02 I get it.
00:03 So I've been I was struggling with the word all day today.
00:06 But anyway,
00:08 so I'm Ollie.
00:10 I'm the founder of It is On and the creator of Glasgow.
00:12 So Glasgow is a bit of a passion project, which is all about we live in a country
00:17 which is in the darkness for six months, and Glasgow is all about bringing joy
00:21 and bringing light to those dark months and bringing something to Glasgow that we
00:25 don't have, which is a world class lighting trail, which is exactly what this is.
00:29 And unlike other lighting trails, it's all about bringing a really big theme
00:32 to life, real big theatrics, thinking big and sort of trying to deliver something
00:36 for the city that we don't have anywhere else in the country.
00:39 So when we started in 2018,
00:41 there was always experimental seeing whether people wanted to come to the event
00:45 and be whether we could make it happen in the gardens.
00:48 And it was hugely successful.
00:50 And every year we want to build on it.
00:52 We want to make it bigger.
00:53 We want to make it better.
00:55 So every year we invest in certain areas that always come back.
00:58 So Marshmallowland, which is my personal favourite.
01:01 Every child should have the ability to
01:03 toast a marshmallow at least once a year, and that's what they get to do here.
01:06 And then what we want to try and do is
01:08 always create a theme every year that connects with people.
01:11 Like I said, it's all about lighting people's lives up.
01:13 It's a time of year when the clocks change.
01:16 Halloween starts, the leaves are changing, the area looks really beautiful.
01:20 And behind me you can see an Ecto-1.
01:23 An Ecto-1 is obviously all about Ghostbusters.
01:25 The theme this year is all about ghosts, ghouls, the nostalgia of the 80s,
01:30 taking inspiration from amazing movies like Ghostbusters
01:33 and the opportunity for people to see the sky lit up.
01:36 So Glasgow wouldn't be Glasgow without getting the opportunity to have
01:40 some of the best street food that Glasgow's got to offer,
01:43 as well as candy floss and marshmallows.
01:46 We've got Mandiamo pizzas.
01:48 We've got Lupin Scoop churros and a whole host of other stuff,
01:52 as well as the famous Glasgow bar where you can grab a beer or a Baileys
01:57 and hot chocolate and sit and watch one of the main finale shows,
02:00 which is an unbelievable showpiece that you get to walk through.
02:04 And this year, what's really exciting,
02:06 if people have been before to Glasgow, is we're going back inside the kibble
02:10 and the show that's in the kibble, which we pulled together last night
02:14 and I've watched for the very first time, is unbelievable.
02:17 So I hope everyone gets the opportunity to see it.
02:20 Glasgow might look when people come around quite easy, but it's really not.
02:24 It takes a team of 150 people to put it together,
02:26 including all the teams that you see in the stewards front of house to keep
02:29 everyone safe and make sure they know where they're going.
02:31 But also the production team.
02:33 So the guys that you're seeing here,
02:35 the programmers and controllers were in the control room,
02:38 which is a really cool space.
02:39 We can monitor the whole gardens here, see all the different spaces up on TV.
02:43 And we've had a production team of around 50 people working over the last two
02:47 and a half weeks, building all from all different disciplines.
02:50 And then there's a creative team that I work alongside of sound designers who
02:54 compose all our music, our lighting programmer, Grant,
02:57 who creates all the lights and brings it together, as well as all the technical
03:01 production people, the set designers such as Claire.
03:04 So it's really a massive team effort,
03:06 generally of amazing world class people, all of whom come from generally
03:11 Glasgow and Scotland, which is really cool.