Light Festival Amsterdam 2026/2027: dates, route, cruises and how to visit

The fifteenth edition of Amsterdam's biggest open-air art exhibition turns the canals into a gallery. From 26 November 2026 to 17 January 2027, light installations by local and international artists will line the water — and this year there is a brand-new route to walk.

What is it

The Amsterdam Light Festival is an annual winter exhibition of light art. Artists place illuminated artworks on, over and around the canals, and the city becomes the venue. There is no single gallery and no single entrance: the collection is spread across the historic centre, free to view, with the water and the winter night as the backdrop.

Edition 15 is a milestone. The festival is celebrating its fifteenth birthday, and for the occasion it asked local and international artists what they want to present to the people who live in and visit the city. The campaign line is See the city in a new light — and, for the first time in years, the route itself has been redesigned.

Dates and hours

The festival runs from Thursday 26 November 2026 to Sunday 17 January 2027.

Lights are on every day from 4:30 pm to 11:00 pm. On 31 December the lights close early, at 9:00 pm, so the city can get on with New Year's Eve.

The route

The walking route is 4.5 km and can be done in full or in sections. Edition 15 introduces a new route, which the organisers are keeping under wraps until closer to opening — expect the classic canal ring, but not the same order as previous years.

The official festival app arrives in mid-November and is the best way to navigate: it marks each artwork, gives background on the artists and concept, and lets you pace the walk. If you want to plan before the app lands, the information points below are the place to ask.

Walk or cruise

There are two honest ways to experience it.

• On foot — free, at your own pace, and the only way to stand in front of an artwork for as long as you like. Dress for a Dutch winter night; the route is exposed along the water.
• By boat — a cruise along the route takes about 75 minutes and sees the works from the level they were designed for. Departure times and prices live in the festival's ticket shop, and operators such as Stromma run dedicated light-festival cruises.

If you only have one evening, walk the middle section and finish near a bridge where several works reflect at once. The reflections are half the exhibition.

Practical information

There are two information points: one at Inside Amstel 1 (Waterlooplein 6), near Waterlooplein, and one in the Central Station area.

Getting there is straightforward: Central Station is the natural starting point for the canal ring, and the route is also reachable by metro and tram around Waterlooplein and Rokin. The walking route is step-free along the canals, but do check the app for any temporary diversions during the season.

A few practical notes that make the difference: weekdays are noticeably quieter than Friday and Saturday nights; the artworks photograph better when the sky still has a little colour, so the 4:30 pm start is worth catching; and 31 December aside, the hours do not change across the holiday period.

Why it matters this winter

The Light Festival has become the thing that anchors an Amsterdam winter — the reliable reason to leave the house after dark between the Christmas markets and New Year. For visitors it is a free, self-guided evening that works in almost any weather. For locals it is a once-a-year reminder that the city's most recognisable feature is not a building but the water itself.

It also sits at the centre of a wider season: the light installations overlap with the Christmas markets, the winter canal cruises and the run-up to New Year's Eve, which is why accommodation around the centre fills up fast across December.

Vibra exists for nights out in this city, and a light festival is the gentler half of that: a walk that ends, more often than not, in a warm bar on the way home. If you are planning the evening around it, check the events calendar on Vibra for what is happening nearby after the lights go off — because in Amsterdam the night does not stop when the exhibition does.

Sources: Amsterdam Light Festival, Edition 15 and Dates & Hours (amsterdamlightfestival.com); Winter Festival Amsterdam, Amsterdam Light Festival 2026/2027 — Dates, Route & Cruises; Stromma, Amsterdam Light Festival cruises.