Christmas season at Porto featuring nearly two million illuminating LEDs

Christmas lights will be inaugurated in the city of Porto on December 1st, at 5.30 p.m. This year there will be more street lighting (57% more ornaments compared to last year) and even more streets with Xmas lighting. Christmas decoration will be illuminated with LED technology this year, enabling savings of about 80% in energy consumption compared to conventional lighting.

The switch on of the lighting zones will be marked at a symbolic moment in Avenida dos Aliados, next to the Christmas Tree of the city that will once again be set up at General Humberto Delgado Square in front of the Paços do Concelho building.

Purpose-built, the Xmas tree will be 26 meters high by 12 meters in diameter. Decorated in blue and gold and with dynamic lighting,  topped by a 4 meters giant star, making it well to 30 meters high.

As in last year, when more than 20,000 people went to Aliados to witness this moment, people from Porto and visitors to the city will be invited, on December 1, at 5.30 p.m., to join this celebration that will include a musical parade, a multimedia light show and pyrotechnics followed by a performance of the band Vozes da Rádio.

 

MORE STREETS AND MORE CONSISTENT LIGHTING

This year more streets, squares, parks and roundabouts will have Xmas lighting.

In order to respond to the new dynamics of the city, namely to the flow of the public through the traditional trade zones and tourist interest, Christmas lighting will cover a total of 48 locations in 2016, seven more than in 2015 and 17 more than in 2014. 

The brightness and intensity of lighting will be enhanced even more this year with the use of over 1.9 million incandescent bulbs.

Within the holiday season ambiance, there are 90 percent more abstract elements, materialized in a refined way. Overall, the focus was a more comprehensive, welcoming and uniform general image of the decorated areas.

The warm white, with a shade of gold, will be the predominant color in the design of the city's Christmas lightings, combined with blue ornaments. It will therefore be a "blue on gold" set of colours that had already been combined in 2015 but with a predominance of gold in 2016.

The choice of a warm hue was made in line with the municipality animation strategy that aims at making Porto even more welcoming this holiday season, an invitation to go out and experience the city.

Christmas lighting will be switched on the 1st December and will run until January 8 2017 and will be switched on daily at 5.30 p.m.