In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.

The excitement is just around the corner. Euroluce is next week! To give you a better scoop about what the show is all about and the fabulous lighting displays that Vivid will be exploring I thought I would share with you the official press release on the event.

The International Lighting Exhibition is back with a wide and innovative range of goods, in total synergy with the Saloni and, in particular with SaloneUfficio, the International Biennial Workspace Exhibition, with which it will now be held every other year from now on, thus boosting the range of design and contract goods on offer.

The 26^th edition of the International Lighting Exhibition, commonly known as Euroluce, is an unmissable appointment, especially following on the heels of the success of the previous editions. It will be back in fighting form, with the content and detail that mark it out as the benchmark lighting sector exhibition at a global level.

Incontrovertible proof that Euroluce 2011 has reached its maturity will be the all-encompassing range of top quality goods on offer, confirmation yet again of the original interest in the decorative that subsequently led to the involvement of other sectors such as street lighting, technical illumination, light sources and, from this year onwards, control systems and last generation devices. A special area will be devoted to the latter, a sort of technological island – identifiable by a unified display that will showcase everything this new lighting sector already has to offer and, especially, that it will require in the near future: from control devices to components.

Euroluce 2011 will be strategically located between the West Gate (Porta Ovest) and South Gate (Porta Sud), in 4 single-storey linked pavilions – 9-11 and 13-15, a total area of 41,000 square metres, that will feature lighting products alone. The extremely user-friendly layout will ensure that operators can move freely between the approximately 450 exhibitors.

As well as being in complete synergy with the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition and SaloneSatellite, Euroluce 2011 will also benefit from being held in tandem with SaloneUfficio, the International Biennial Workspace Exhibition. This will be located in Pavilions 22-24, opposite those of Euroluce, thus amplifying the range of design and contract goods on offer, and responding to the ever-increasing affinities that now exist between the worlds of work and lighting.

The 26^th edition of Euroluce has also provided an opportunity for renewed collaboration with the PLDA and APIL lighting designers’ associations. Two the scheduled appointments: the Educators’ Summit on 12^th and 13^th April and Light Focus on Milan: The Lighting Designer and New Technologies on 14^th and 15^th April, both at the Milan Fairgrounds, Rho.

Euroluce is unique in that it involves and draws in huge target visitor numbers – 308,000 at the last edition – and is the unmissable appointment for those who want to keep their fingers on the pulse of the lighting world of tomorrow and join in the celebrations for the 50^th anniversary of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile at the Fairgrounds.

A special event will also be dedicated to the theme of light. Highlighting the close ties between the Fair and the urban territory, Cosmit will be gazing into the heart of Milan, right to its ancient core, comprised of what is now the area around Piazza della Scala-Piazza San Fedele. Here, where the ground rises gently, the ancients used to worship a small wood that created an arbour sheltered by trees they considered sacred, we intend to recreate the ancient sacred grove, the lucus as they used to call it, which – when the light fell on it – became “a multitude of trees of religious significance.” Attilio Stocchi’s scenography for “The Arbour” will transform the heart of Milan into a new, visionary Theatrum Naturae, where the trees once swathed in the Po Valley mists will flourish once again, to the sound of that extraordinary chorus produced by the flying species that populated it: goldfinches, long-tailed tits, hoopoes, common redstarts, wagtails…