Winter Lights at Canary Wharf promises a rare kind of public art experience. Large-scale installations, open access, and the chance to move through the city at night with purpose. In previous years, it has delivered moments of genuine intrigue.

This year, something else took over.

And then the rain came.

The combination of rain, umbrellas and sheer refusal to share space quickly made the event difficult to navigate. Umbrella blindness set in almost immediately. People froze, unwilling to get even slightly wet, while others pushed forward as if the experience might disappear if they were not first.

It became difficult, if not impossible, to follow the suggested route. Installations that demanded pause and distance were swallowed by a crowd that never stopped moving. Art designed to breathe was smothered by urgency, impatience and the constant need to be seen.

That is not to say there were no moments of genuine brilliance.

FloWeЯ PoWeЯ by Aerosculpture, Jean-Pierre David and Christian Thellier, Aether by Architecture Social Club, and Sanctuary by Ithaca Studio stood out. Vibrant, hypnotic, and, in the right conditions, close to being genuinely moving.

Elsewhere, In Bloom by Kumquat Lab and Lacto Reacto Light by Jack Wimperis offered something more playful. These were moments where interaction felt natural rather than competitive, where engagement did not rely on forcing your way through a wall of phones, when you could get close enough to experience them at all.

The problem is not the work. It is the way it is consumed.

A sour note emerged early on as other people’s phones were pushed inches from my face to capture poorly framed selfies. There is something uniquely frustrating about watching people press themselves so close to kinetic installations that they miss the work entirely. What is the obsession with being directly in front at any cost?

Some pieces this year also felt overly familiar, echoing ideas explored more effectively in previous editions. That repetition risks dulling the impact. Winter Lights needs to decide what it wants to be: an event producing bold, challenging work that justifies the crowds, or a commercially convenient draw that encourages a polite circuit of the Wharf.

Those two things are not the same.

Ultimately, the evening felt underwhelming. Not because the work lacked quality, but because the conditions made it difficult to experience. Crowds dominated the space, and the combination of weather and behaviour exposed how fragile the event becomes under pressure.

Winter Lights still contains moments of beauty.

But until it reckons with who it is for, and how it functions when crowded, those moments risk being drowned out by umbrellas, congestion and the constant need to be seen.