in the Amsterdam Light Festival
By Nao Noguchi | Culture | March 10, 2026
Cover Illustration: Fracture Point by Filip Roca, December 7, 2025. Nao Noguchi/The Amsterdammer
The Amsterdam Light Festival comes and goes every winter, hard to miss yet easily misunderstood. Soft News reporter Nao Noguchi examines how the festival can be diversely experienced and build community within the busy city during its greyest season.
The Amsterdam Light Festival gathers international artists to produce creative works and place them across the city. Every year the festival takes place from late November to early January, when the city is lit up in various shades of illumination. Visitors experiencing artworks via boat tours, walking, and biking, allows for different perspectives on the city.
This festival began in 2012. The 2025/2026 edition marks its fourteenth anniversary with twenty installations across the cityscape. Amsterdam Light Festival is a non-profit foundation that collaborates with the municipality and businesses in the city’s cultural sector to run the event. The event aims to spread the unique mix of cultures in Amsterdam to people through art and to promote social connectedness. It is also a site where many international artists from countries including the United Kingdom, Italy, China, Spain, Norway, Australia, and the United States come together, contributing to the city’s lively and illuminated scenery.
The artworks scattered across the city encourage people to step into areas they might not have otherwise. Places that are usually just routes for getting from point A to B suddenly transformed into an experience guided by the bright artworks. The lights provided opportunities for audiences to pause for a still moment in a fast-paced city. Some visitors sat on benches by the canals chatting with one another with smiles and giggles, holding rich conversations. Some even took selfies together with the art pieces. The festival reshaped how individuals spend their time and move across space.
A tiny piece of advice from your story writer: After undergoing both the light tour by foot individually and with a guided canal tour, both were very different experiences. Viewing the festival by foot allows you to see the lights at your own pace and stop at any moment to take notice of the small details put in by artists. At the same time the canal tour operates at a faster pace, with an onboard guide clarifying the meanings behind the installations, alongside telling many fun facts about the city. Despite heavy rain during the canal tour, many attendees unzipped the plastic windows overhead to view the light installations and conversed about what they saw and how they felt about the pieces. The passengers enjoyed warm beverages served by the crew in a gezellig (cozy and warm) atmosphere, shot videos and photographs of the artworks, interactively experiencing the city.
One of the highlights from the tour is the artworks made by children displayed on screen panels along the canals. This is an education project that 1600 primary school students participated in to learn about quantum technology and draw how they see the future with the support from professional artists. The involvement of young members of Amsterdam’s community demonstrates how the festival facilitates connectivity between different demographics.
The Amsterdam Light Festival promotes international artists of all ages and backgrounds to provide a platform for international collaboration to transform the city into an exceptional cultural experience. On a typical cloudy day, Amsterdam may feel a little sleepy and subdued, causing many to ignore its charm. However, during the light festival, the city sparkles with a vibrant spectacle that reshapes how the city is experienced.
Nao Noguchi is a university student in Amsterdam. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Amsterdammer.
