page_title: Enlighten Canberra
section_title: 2012: Enlighten made a part of the Canberra Festival
hierarchical_section_title: Enlighten Canberra / History of the event / 2012: Enlighten made a part of the Canberra Festival
caption_attribution_description: English: Enlighten Festival March 2014 at National Science and Technology Centre
context_page_description: Enlighten Canberra is an outdoor annual art and cultural festival held in Canberra, Australia featuring illuminating light installations and projections, performances from local and interstate musicians, dining and film events.
  The festival is an Australian Capital Territory Government initiative held annually in early March, encouraging people to "See Canberra in a whole new light." The centrepiece of Enlighten Canberra is the illuminating of Canberra's cultural institutions after dark, including Old Parliament House, Parliament House and the National Gallery of Australia as well as the National Portrait Gallery and Questacon. There is also live music, film screenings and after-hours tours.
  Since its inception, Enlighten has become increasingly popular, attracting 115,000 visitors in 2013 and 131,500 in 2014. Attendance rose again in 2015, to 287,874 visitors.
context_section_description: In its second year, Enlighten was made a part of the Canberra Festival. The merging of the festivals was met with criticism from the Canberra branch of the Liberal Party of Australia, with Canberra Liberal Brendan Smyth describing the Labor Government's attempt to create a new festival as "embarrassing".
  The Enlighten entertainment lineup featured in the 2012 event was scaled back significantly from the 2011 event to instead feature local Canberra artists including Owen Campbell. Of the nearly 100 artists contracted to perform in the 2012 festival, 53 per cent were local artists, paid 11.5 per cent of the Enlighten programming budget that year. In 2012 Questacon and the National Portrait Gallery became canvasses for projection for the first time—they had not been lit in the 2011 Enlighten festival.
caption: A 2014 Enlighten projection on Questacon
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