The project
For the fourth year running, LCI partnered with IMG Events to reimagine Windsor Great Park Illuminated, delivering an ambitious 2025 edition that blended large-scale spectacle, playful storytelling and cutting-edge immersive technology. Spanning the park’s historic landscape, the trail invited visitors into a richly layered winter journey filled with humour, wonder and unforgettable visual moments. LCI managed the full lifecycle, from concept, media creation, and technical design to installation, programming, and onsite operation.
With bold new installations, interactive elements and original IP woven throughout, the 2025 trail pushed creative and technical boundaries while preserving the magic that has made Windsor Great Park Illuminated a must-see seasonal experience.
The challenge
Building on the success of previous years, the brief for 2025 was clear: raise the bar again. IMG Events sought a trail that felt entirely fresh, introduced new hero moments and deepened the narrative experience, all within the constraints of a protected royal park.
Strict environmental controls, light and noise curfews, a one-month installation window and after-dark testing schedules demanded meticulous planning, precision engineering and seamless collaboration across multiple disciplines.
The solution
Windsor Expressway
At the entrance, visitors were greeted by the Windsor Expressway, a spectacular 24-metre custom-built train with fully illuminated carriages. Paired with a festive audio soundtrack the train became an iconic opening moment and a favourite photo opportunity.
Laser Lane
A high-energy laser show combined Laser World 12 Watt Lasers with effects heads and Laser World FX700 units, intensified with haze and smoke for maximum impact.
Prism Lake
A striking contemporary installation featured a 30-metre LCI floating water screen, serving as a canvas for projected content powered by a 30,000-lumen Barco projector. A four-speaker JBL audio system and BrightSign media player completed this tranquil yet powerful visual moment reflected across the water’s surface.
Mischief in the Snow
This playful, interactive moment featured four 1m holofans showcasing mischievous elves mid-snowball fight, with flocked snow creating a beautiful snowy scene completing the immersion.
Santa’s Delivery Jam
A custom-built LED Santa House brought humour and storytelling to the trail. A fully dressed set build housed a four x two metre outdoor LED screen, showing Santa’s arrival and climb down the chimney. Audio was provided via Adastra speakers and a QSC amplifier completing the scene. The system was controlled with a bright sign and Novastar LED wall controller.
Woodfest
A bold, festival-style zone, Woodfest welcomed guests with a hologram badger security guard before leading them to a custom pyramid stage. Holographic animal performers, mirror balls, moving lights, haze machines, LED bars, bubble haze and a powerful sound system combined to create a surreal woodland festival.
Mystic Path
A cinematic transition space, Laser Path immersed guests in a corridor of light powered by 200 lasers, enhanced with low-lying haze from low smoke machines. As beams sliced through the darkness, a six-speaker Adastra soundscape, pulled visitors deeper into the trail.
Fairies
In the Enchanted Forest, technology and storytelling intertwined. Fairies appeared with10 Holofans surrounded by 300 pixel-controlled RGB fireflies and 100 glowing RGB spheres suspended through the trees. Audio delivered via six Adastra speakers brought the characters to life as the fairies appeared to interact playfully with passing guests.
Enchanted Lanterns
A serene interlude, this installation transformed the forest with 500 softly glowing lanterns, creating a magical passage that contrasted beautifully with the trail’s high-energy.
Windsor Illuminated
Illuminated Windsor letters signalled the halfway point around the trail.
Frosty Tunnel
A second immersive walkthrough featured a 27-metre custom-built tunnel formed from pixel-mapped lighting, using over 300 pixel strings to create a flowing, ambient experience.
Frosty Fred
This world’s first outdoor LED screen snowman featured a 1.2m head and 1.8m diameter display body with 5mm pixel pitch, blending seamlessly into the trail. He was immediately followed by a 5m high snowman arch.
Sleigh Stop
An Instagram-ready moment, this sculptural scene featured four metre illuminated reindeer and sleigh forms that captured the playful spirit of the trail and encouraged guests to pause and share their experience of the trail.
Great Deer Glow
Two eight metre steel reindeer sculptures stood proudly as guardians of the forest, wrapped in colour-pixel controlled LED neon, crowned with glowing neon antlers. The reindeer were set among a ground sphere array of 3000 x 5cm orbs, creating chasing patterns across the floor. The display was further enhanced by 6 moving lights created, beams through the air above the display.
Windsor Water Show
A spectacular fusion of water, light and sound, the Water Ballet featured 6 choreographed moving fountain jets reaching heights of 18 metres. Set to a bespoke audio mix blending The Nutcracker with rock anthems, motion-controlled choreography transformed the lake into a dynamic performance stage. It created a great wrap up show for the trail featuring many of the character you met along the trail.
Dreaming Tree
The trail end saw the return of Douglas the Dreaming Tree, an original LCI character. Through projection mapping and motion-triggered audio, Douglas came alive to deliver a poignant farewell, drawing together the trail’s narrative threads in a moment of quiet reflection.
The impact
Technical Delivery
The 2025 trail was a monumental technical achievement, involving:
- 60,000 lumens of projection
- 100,000 fairy lights
- 400 universes of DMX
- 120 speakers
- 20,000 metres of cable
- Dozens of synchronised control zones
All installations were delivered within a one-month build window, with testing conducted exclusively after dusk.
The 2025 edition of Windsor Great Park Illuminated delivered an unforgettable festive experience, blending large-scale spectacle with intimate storytelling moments. The trail delighted visitors of all ages, generated significant social media buzz, and further cemented the event’s reputation as one of the UK’s premier winter light trails.
For IMG Events and The Crown Estate, the success of the 2025 trail reinforced the strength of their long-term partnership and demonstrated LCI’s ability to deliver complex, high-impact experiences under demanding conditions, while continuing to innovate year after year.
What they said
“This year we wanted to go bigger than before and lean into a stronger storytelling theme, to shape a narrative that everyone would enjoy. We tasked LCI with improving the flow across the geography of the site, creating brand new installations and bringing in new AV technology that really brought the ‘wow factor’.
“Our visitor numbers were up by 7.6% from the previous year, and we had some fantastic feedback from our customer feedback survey highlighting the size of the trial and the lighting installations themselves.”
~Kathryn Stafford, IMG Events
