CONCEPT

City of Lights is a spectacular annual festival of lights. It is a procession of roughly 1000 participants including artists, school children, bands and dancers and has been known to bring in to Truro 25,000 spectators. The parade includes 14 large lanterns made by commissioned artists and numerous smaller lanterns made by school children and community groups. Each year is themed and 2014's theme was 'heroes', this was inspired by the ordinary people being placed in extraordinary circumstances, particularly the first world war. The event also includes the switch on of the Truro Christmas lights as well as music and dancers from the Truro school of Samba and other local bands.

RESPONSIBILITIES

My role was to steward one of the busiest parts of the parade. This was a tough area to maintain as it was where the barriers begun and therefore there were many spectators that where not behind barriers. I had to ensure that there was enough space for the parade to get through and that the public stayed where they were supposed to be. I was expected to approach the event with a positive, engaged attitude and to understand my responsibilities in order to fulfill my role. I had to be aware of every aspect of the event as I would often have the public approaching me with questions. Volunteering at this event taught me that no matter how successful or beautiful the delivery of and event is there will always be complaints to be dealt with, it is impossible to please everybody. I throughly enjoyed working on City of Lights and I think it is a marvelous event that gets spectators excited about christmas consequently beginning the festive season for Cornwall.