Lights out a success 
Congratulations to all who contributed towards making last night’s Lights Out initiative such a wonderful success. A huge number of events were held across the country, generating a huge amount of public and media interest in the Legion.
TheLights Out event—organised by 14-18 NOW, a cultural programme to mark the centenary—invited everyone in the UK to participate in a shared moment of reflection by turning off their lights from 10-11 pm on 4 August, leaving on a single light or candle, to mark the 100th anniversary of when Great Britain entered the First World War.
Westminster Abbey led the nation last night with a First World War vigil liturgy which was broadcast live on the BBC. Liverpool Town Hall, the iver Building and Area Officeas well as Blackpool Tower, Downing Street, Tower Bridge, the Eden Project in Cornwall, the headquarters of the Football Association and the Imperial War Museums in London and Greater Manchester, were among the buildings which also took part in the event. The Duchess of Cornwall joined senior politicians—including Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband—for the service of solemn commemoration at Westminster Abbey. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and David Cameron attended a twilight ceremony at St Symphorien Military Cemetery near Mons, Belgium.
The Legion received wide coverage for the event from all major news services, including the BBC, Daily Mailand Huffington Post. The Legionalso received the second highest number of visitors to its website, with the Lights Out page receiving over 113,000 visits—this compares with the Legion's best result of 115,449 on Remembrance Sunday, 10 November 2013. Further, 2,833,712 people have seen our Lights Out posts on Facebook and 1,729,878 people have seen our Lights Out on Twitter, where we were trending last night.
The Lights Out initiative has been a wonderful success for the Legion and was a beautiful and poignant way to mark the centenary of the First World War.
