National Botanic Garden of Wales Winter Light Trail 2023

A captivating after dark, illuminated trail.

Set to ambient music, you will follow the trail as it meanders through The Garden of Wales. Stunning lighting elements and light play will guide you along the way.

The trail is approximately 1.4km long and (depending on how quickly you walk through) will take circa 60-90 minutes to complete.

Please note that the entire trail takes place outside (obviously during winter and after dark). It will be cold, dark and often wet! Please wrap up warm and wear sturdy footwear.

Please note we will not have 'traditional festive' decorations at Luminate and Father Christmas will not be there - he'll be far too busy getting everything ready at the North Pole!

For the safety and enjoyment of all our visitors, dogs are NOT permitted at Luminate*

*with the exception of Guide dogs and assistance dogs

There is a path all the way around, marked by festoon lighting throughout the duration. So just follow the festoon!

In order to ensure your own safety and enjoyment (and the safety of our other visitors and staff), all visitors must remain on the clearly marked trail at all times. All children and vulnerable adults must be closely supervised at all times. Luminate takes place in the winter, after dark. All areas other than the clearly defined trail will have potential trip hazards and risks to health and safety, which may be difficult to see during the time that Luminate is operational, so please stay on the path at all times and adhere to any instructions/advice given by our stewarding staff.

Conditions on the trail will be continually monitored by our onsite team, but we would remind all visitors that the event takes place in an outside, country setting over winter after dark. So please exercise caution when attending and supervise children and vulnerable adults at all times.

Some of our lighting installations are interactive, so you can enjoy some light play throughout your journey with us. All such installations will be easily identifiable and will have stewards stationed close-by to guide you with what to do. For your own safety and enjoyment, please do not touch any other lights/electrical installations and ensure children and vulnerable adults are supervised at all times, so as to ensure that they do not.

In order to ensure that Luminate can be enjoyed by everyone to the upmost, it has been designed as a continuous experience, with strictly fixed entry time slots, starting from 4.30pm onwards, which must be pre-booked in advance.

To ensure the enjoyment and safety of all our visitors, we allocate a set number of tickets per timeslot and would ask that all visitors adhere to their booked timeslot. Our entry time slots are every fifteen minutes from 4.30-4.45pm through to 8.00pm – 8.15pm. At certain sites, we offer later slots on popular nights (Please check the site ticketing page for more info).

Please note that on Christmas Eve last entry to our trail will be at 7.15pm. On that date the trail itself will close promptly at 9pm. Please note that the food and drink concessions will close by 8.30pm that day.

Please note that if you are booked on an early slot, doors will only open to Luminate guests at 4.30pm, this is to ensure that it is dark enough on site to enjoy the lights at their very best!

Toilets (including baby change and fully accessible toilets) are located in the Courtyard area, which is accessible at the start and end of your trail. Toilets are also located in the Stables Courtyard , just past the half way point.