This year's Christmas Light Festival will focus on the theme of Undiscovered Oxford.

Organisers plan to explore the city’s hidden highlights with installations, illuminations, performances and events from Friday November 16 to Sunday, November 18.

Oxford Mail:

The lantern parade at last year's Christmas Light Festival

Festival Director Rachel Capell is programming the event with cultural partners around the city.

She said: "The festival’s theme ‘Undiscovered Oxford’ offers the opportunity to reveal so much about the city of which we are often less aware.

"Our cultural partners in the festival are opening up their buildings and disclosing their contents in exciting and unusual ways – particularly the projections on and even in some of our most loved buildings.

"The festival is a unique moment in the calendar when we can all come together and share in a fantastic array of installations and outdoor performances, enjoying being in the crowd and discovering new things together.”

Mary Clarkson, executive board member for culture and city centre, said: "What I love about Oxford’s Christmas Light Festival is that it brings Oxford’s diverse communities together.

"It’s wonderful to see all of Oxford’s cultural attractions and groups come together to put on a fantastic mix of events to wow audiences from all four corners of the city. The range of events taking place across this year’s festival weekend is astonishing, and it really has the potential to be the best ever.”

In addition to more than 20 cultural venues opening up with special events over the weekend, the festival will feature hubs of activity at Broad Street, Gloucester Green, Bonn Square and Oxford Castle Quarter.

Following the launch of the festival with the lantern parade featuring over 400 school pupils, residents and visitors can enjoy spectacular visual treats like Dan Fox ’s dynamic sound and light sculpture Shimmer Tree, the breath-taking Heliosphere from The Dream Engine that floats a dancing figure high in the air, and stunning giant projections from Luxmuralis adorning Oxford’s iconic buildings, There will also be specially curated artworks in Westgate Oxford.