Ulverston Lantern Festival dazzles with story-time characters

A procession of brightly lit characters danced through Ulverston Town Centre as the Lantern Festival came out in full swing.

This year's theme was 'Story Time' which saw children and adults bring their favourite books to life.

Lit-up creations included The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, a couple of the Mr Men, as well as much bigger projects like a monster from Where the Wild Things Are. 

Flying elephant from Dumbo (Image: Chris Nelson) (Image: Chris Nelson) (Image: Chris Nelson) One of the Wild Things (Image: Imogen Barber) The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Image: Imogen Barber) The house from Disney's Up (Image: Imogen Barber) Shrek (Image: Imogen Barber) Room on the Broom (Image: Imogen Barber)

As the festival celebrated its 42nd anniversary, event coordinators revealed that they were expecting around 1000 people in the procession, and a crowd more than 8,000 strong.

The Lantern Festival is the biggest of its kind in Europe and attracts people from all over the country, with buses and trains arriving throughout the day.

Since featuring on Channel 5 over the past few months, Ulverston and the procession have enjoyed an even 'higher profile'.

Chair of the Lantern Festival, Chris Nelson, he was 'absolutely blown away by the creativity of our Ulverston lanterneers who embraced our Story Time theme and produced some truly amazing images.  From flying elephants and life size dinosaurs to dragons and pirate ships...our River of Light became a Stream of Dreams!'

"Special thanks must go to all of the volunteers who give up their time to make this a night to remember for thousands of people," he added.

An owl from Harry Potter delivering a letter (Image: Imogen Barber) Story cube, showing Paddington Bear (Image: Imogen Barber) The event is self funding and run entirely by volunteers, it relies on donations and kit sales to raise the £10,000 needed to continue running the event next year.