London's Kew Gardens opens its festive lights display

STORY: With over a million lights along a 2.7km trail, this year's attraction showcases new installations of suspended illumination and optical illusion.

For Daire Basra, the head of event operations at Kew, this year's show marked a return to normal following two years of COVID-19 restrictions impacting previous shows.

"This is our 10th birthday year, so we're very excited to be presenting a brand new show this year. We have 22 amazing artistic installations around a 2.7 kilometre trail," Basra said.

Among the attractions were animated projections, a light display shaped like a Christmas tree and an impressive light, water and pyrotechnic display in front of the garden's Palm House.

This year's show comes as much of Europe faced an energy crisis brought by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"We now run on 100% biodiesel fuel. We've used main power where we possibly can, so we're probably using 40% less energy this year than we have previously," Basra responded to the crisis.