A look at: Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival

January can feel like a very dark and long month, all of the Christmas lights have been taken down and it’s cold outside. But, there’s a bright spot in the month, which is the Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival. This annual event sees temporary installations and permanent artworks around Canary Wharf linked together in a free light trail. In this post, we take a look at the Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival, so you can decide whether it should be added to your list of things to do in London with your family.

All photos in this post come from the 2025 Winter Lights Festival.

The Winter Lights Festival is a free event that has run for the past eight years, the 2025 edition being the ninth time it has been run. No tickets are required, you just need to show up in Canary Wharf and follow the trail at your leisure.

The 2025 edition runs from Tuesday 21 January to Saturday 1 February 2025. It is stated that the installations are open from 5-10pm, which is when it will be dark and the installations are best able to be seen.

We arrived early at 4.30pm and found that the installations were on already. It was still relatively light at that point, but it was starting to get dark. By 5pm it was blue hour and by 5.15pm it was properly dark.

A map of the trail is available online here but hard copies can also be picked up from one of the many stewards who are at each installation and dotted around Canary Wharf. You’ll find that the trail is very well marked, with signs available along the route and with many stewards pointing people in the right direction and controlling the crowds.

A few installations had fences marking out a queueing system. They weren’t necessary when we visited and we walked straight through, but if you visit at a busier time, you may find you need to wait. If you can visit on a weekday, you are likely to find that the experience is less busy than on a weekend.

In addition to the light displays, most of the installations are accompanied by sound. They also all have boards that explain the story behind the pieces.

In total, expect to spend around two hours or so doing the trail (more if you visit at a busy time or if you decide to stop off somewhere for food, drink or snacks). If you have younger kids who won’t walk the whole trail or who you need to get to bed, you could do a truncated version of the trail (you can join at any point). In our view, the best installations to see in 2025 were:

• Number 3 – Error by Vendel & de Wolf;
• Number 4 – Wave by Squidsoup;
• Number 5 – Evanescent Droplets by Atelier Sisu; and
• Number 9 – Bird Passing By by Luminariste with Benjamin Nesme & Marc Sicard.

(These are featured in the four photos above.)

Overall, this is a very family friendly event, lots of people are out and about, so even if you visit later in the evening you won’t find yourself alone. You can take the trail at your own pace and there are plenty of places to get food and drink, and there are plenty of toilets en route (marked on the map). Visit on a weekday if you can for the quietest experience, although do expect to deal with lots of people being around, this is a very popular event.

For more of a look at the 2025 Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival, check out our TikTok.

If you visit the Canary Wharf Winter Lights Festival with your family, let us know what your favourites were!