Under the motto “United We Shine”, Spotlight 2018 celebrated unity and solidarity, drawing inspiration from the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Great Union of Romania. In this context, the festival brought for the first time the facade of CEC Palace, which was transformed by 3D video mapping projections made by the most talented artists from all over the world. For the first time, the video mapping contest allowed the public to vote for the big winner, and the theme of the edition was dedicated to the connections between people, cultures and cities. The international partner of the 4th edition was the Festival of Lights Berlin.
The opening of the festival took place in “George Enescu” Square, with an impressive performance supported by Light Balance, the famous troupe of high-tech dancers from Ukraine, finalists of the America's Got Talent 2017 show. The show was complemented by a show by British drummers Spark!, which combined music with futuristic elements, using costumes and instruments lit by LEDs.
During the four days of the festival, video mapping installations and projections were arranged along a main route that stretched between the Central University Library and Splaiul Independenței, and in 2018, Spotlight expanded the event map to include iconic buildings and monuments of the city, such as the Arc de Triomphe, the National Museum of Natural History “Grigore Antipa”, and the Palace of the Castle Tirbei, Romanian Athenaeum, Ministry of Internal Affairs, University Square, Bucharest National Theatre and Bucharest City Hall.
The festival ended on Sunday evening, April 15, with the award ceremony of the International Video Mapping Competition at CEC Palace. In the presence of the artistic director of the festival, Birgit Zander, the winner was announced by the audience through online voting. Of the six finalist works that ran on the facade of the CEC Palace at Spotlight 2018, the work of Romanian artists from Mindscape Studio won the grand prize worth 5,000 euros. The other five works entered in the competition were by artists from Darklight Studio in Spain, Hermes Mangialardo in Italy, KEDR Visuals in Russia, Multiscalar in Germany and Skgmedia in China.
With an exhibition space of more than 20,000 m2, a team of more than 300 professionals and artists from 11 countries, an international video mapping competition, 27 installations and light projections and 8 new locations in Bucharest, Spotlight celebrated in 2018 the Centenary year together with more than 500,000 Bucharesters and tourists.
