The historic Oakland Cemetery was founded in 1850 and covers 48 acres just east of downtown Atlanta. Over 70,000 people are buried here including Atlanta mayors, Georgia governors, Union and Confederate soldiers, paupers in unmarked graves, and others. Some recognizable names include author Margaret Mitchell, golfer Bobby Jones, and musician Kenny Rogers.

The Illumine festival happens in the cemetery every April. We walked over from our house and arrived at dusk.

As the sun goes down, colorful lighting illuminates grave markers, mausoleums, and other structures around the property. Trees and other vegetation are also highlighted with a variety of colors. We’d been to the cemetery previously during the day, so it was cool to see it after dark.

In addition to the cemetery-wide mood lighting, there were also lighted art installations by several Atlanta-area artists. This year, 11 artists were featured, and some of the artists were on hand to talk about their work. Art media ranged from neon to holograms to LED to projection and more.

There were also musicians staged around the property. There was one guy in particular who really caught our attention. He was a cellist who used a loop machine to record layer upon layer upon layer of rhythms and melodies to make it sound like there were several instruments playing together. He would even include tapping and knocking on the wooden body of the cello to create percussion tracks. It was really cool. We stuck around so we could listen to his whole performance, and then we chatted with him afterwards and bought a CD. You can find his videos online by searching for OkCello on YouTube.

Of course, there were snacks booths set up around the cemetery plus a merchandise booth selling items from the cemetery museum shop. There were also port-o-potties available.

All in all, it was a really fun evening.