Lantern Festival set to light up West End of Morecambe on festive Saturday

A series of festive events including the traditional Lantern Festival will welcome in the Christmas season to the West End of Morecambe.

More Music’s Lantern Festival will light up the streets of Morecambe on Saturday December 3.

At 6pm the lantern procession will assemble outside More Music and set off through the residential streets of the West End.

There will be music from the Cacophony Arkestra, a costumed processional carnival band sharing music from their latest climate change focused project Insektaggedon,

The group performs a mixture of jazz-tinged Soca, Morricone-isms and Afro-beat - guaranteed to get people moving.

Cacophony Arkestra will be joined on the procession by More Music’s Baybeat Streetband reworking festive classics into funky beat-filled stompers.

The lovely lanterns used in the procession are made of paper and willow and have been created in workshops at local schools and in community sessions. 

You can come and make your own lantern to carry in the procession at a free family workshop at More Music between 10am and 4pm on November 19, 20 and 26. Children must be accompanied by an adult at all times. Lanterns take about four hours to make. All materials will be provided. 

This free festival has been held locally for the past 19 years and is an uplifting community celebration for the West End.

After the lantern parade, you can join in with musicians from More Music in singing some festive songs before enjoying a magical shadow puppet show from Thingumajig Theatre who are bring their beautiful giant Ghost Caribou to the lantern festival for the first time. 

Creative West End will also host a Winter Market on December 3.

It runs from 11am to 4pm, and you can find out about Creative West End projects, discover community organisations in the area, try some locally made food, listen to music, buy something handmade, swap something on the book stall or simply hang out at the community hub area.

Creative West End will also put on a huge performance linked to the Winter Market around the alleyways of the West End. Artists will run various workshops, and there will be augmented reality sculptures and animations, dance performances, theatre, music and spoken word all happening on the Saturday with a build-up event on the Friday (December 2).

In the evening, the Baked A La Ska Christmas show will be held inside More Music on Devonshire Road from 7.45pm.

Baked A La Ska are the ‘heavy heavy sound’ of Manchester and have been serving up the sweetest of good party vibes, vintage ska sounds and an eccentric platter of covers since 2008.

Tickets for the Baked A La Ska Christmas show range from £5 to £10 and can be bought at moremusic.org.uk or by calling 01524 831997 (under 18s free). The Creative West End Market and Lantern Festival are free.