Largest neon art installation

The largest neon art installation is Sky's the Limit, which was created in 1987 by artists Michael Hayden (Canada) and his wife Kristina Lucas (USA) for a walkway tunnel between two terminals at O'Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The dramatic piece, which is also kinetic and incorporates audio for added calming effect, stretches 744 ft (226.8 m) long from end to end and comprises 466 gas-filled tubes in 79 different colours.

The 8-in (20-cm) tubes (which were bent by Federal Sign) were all handpainted with transparent ink when already lit. The tubes are filled not with neon but rather argon and mercury, but "neon lighting" is used as a general term to describe any luminous tubing that passes electricity through an inert gas to generate a diffuse "cold light" (vs incandescent light bulbs that generate – and as a result waste a lot of their energy – through heat).