Record Numbers Turn Up For Imagine Peace Tower

Roughly 2.100 people turned up to watch Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace Tower turn on in Viðey last night, the largest turnout ever, reports RÚV.

The island was packed as the tower was switched on and 4 whaling boats were hired by Yoko Ono to ferry people between Reykjavík and Viðey.

This is the eighth time the peace tower, a memorial to John Lennon, has been lit. The tower is turned on each year on Lennon’s birthday, October 9 and is turned off on December 8, the day he died in 1980.

The Imagine Peace Tower has “Imagine Peace” written on the monument’s exterior in 24 languages. The memorial, which consists of a tall tower of lights and prisms that reflect a column of light vertically into the sky, has become a tourist attraction for Icelanders and foreigners alike.