 | | | Crowds watching the switching on of the Christmas lights in London |
Every year in November, many town centres around the UK are lit up with Christmas lights in preparation for the Christmas period. Some of the big cities in the UK have very extravagant light displays. Sometimes celebrities switch on the Christmas lights. Oxford Street in London is one of the most famous high streets in the world and the switching on of the Christmas lights is a very big event. Gary Reeves is the chief executive of the New West End Company, which organises everything to do with the Christmas lights in London. “It generates a really good reason for Londoners to come to their high street to see a great event – see the lights come on and really it signals the start of the Christmas trading period for the retailers.” It certainly was a big event this year - Westlife switched on the lights. “What you can see is over 10,000 people congregating to see one of the biggest pop acts say 3-2-1 and on come the Christmas lights.” It’s not only Londoners who enjoy the event. There are people from all around the world come to Oxford Street, including tourists from China. “We’re from Shanghai. It’s great, fantastic – Did you enjoy Westlife? – Oh yes, of course, I screamed!” There have been Christmas lights on London’s major shopping streets for over forty years now and every year a lot of planning goes into them. “In terms of designing and producing the lights it takes twelve months – in terms of putting them up it takes roughly three to four weeks to put them up and two weeks to take them down.” London is extremely organised in planning its Christmas lights. It might surprise you to know that arrangements are already under way for the Christmas lights in 2008! | 
