I am pleased to share my latest article, “Light Festivals in Portugal: nightlife, tourism and culture”
This paper takes a step back from individual events to look at the broader trajectory of light festivals in Portugal, asking a fundamental question: how did these events move from experimental cultural practices to strategic tools of urban policy?
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2015 and 2023, the article traces the emergence, consolidation, and transformation of light festivals across different Portuguese cities, including Lisbon, Cascais, Lousada, Loulé, and Aveiro. What emerges is not a linear story of success, but a more complex process shaped by cultural ambition, economic pressures, and political decision-making
At their origin, light festivals appear as exploratory interventions in urban space. Early initiatives such as Luzboa were not simply events, but attempts to rethink how art, public space, and the night could be brought together. These projects operated in a context of experimentation, where the city itself became a medium, and where the night was reimagined as a space of encounter and creative possibility.
Over time, however, this experimental dimension became progressively institutionalized. Municipal governments began to recognize the potential of light festivals as tools for urban regeneration, tourism promotion, and city branding. What had initially been artistic interventions became part of broader strategies of cultural and economic development
This shift is crucial. It marks the transition from light festivals as cultural practices to light festivals as policy instruments.
In this process, the logic of what I describe as eventification becomes particularly visible. Festivals are no longer isolated occurrences, but part of a wider repertoire of urban governance tools designed to activate space, attract visitors, and produce symbolic value. They contribute to the internationalization of municipalities, positioning them within competitive circuits of cultural tourism.
The case of Lumina in Cascais illustrates this dynamic especially well. Supported by municipal strategy and integrated into tourism development agendas, the festival became a flagship event capable of attracting large audiences and generating visibility at both national and international levels At the same time, its trajectory also reveals the fragility of such initiatives, as funding priorities shift and political agendas evolve.
This tension between ambition and precarity runs throughout the history of light festivals in Portugal. These events depend heavily on public funding, institutional support, and shifting policy frameworks. Their continuity is never guaranteed, and their disappearance often leaves little trace beyond memory and fragmented archives.
At a broader level, the article also engages with the role of light festivals within the experience economy. These events are designed to produce memorable, immersive environments that attract diverse audiences and generate forms of emotional engagement. They transform urban space temporarily, creating what could be described as enchanted or affective atmospheres that reconfigure how the city is perceived and inhabited
Yet, this experiential dimension is inseparable from processes of commodification. As light festivals become embedded in tourism and branding strategies, they risk being reduced to instruments of economic valorization, where cultural production is aligned with the demands of visibility, attractiveness, and consumption.
At the same time, it would be reductive to see them only through this lens. Light festivals also foster forms of social interaction, community participation, and cultural democratization. In some cases, they involve local schools, artists, and residents, contributing to the formation of audiences and to the strengthening of local cultural ecosystems
What emerges, then, is a fundamentally ambivalent phenomenon. Light festivals operate simultaneously as spaces of encounter and as tools of governance, as cultural expressions and as economic instruments, as moments of collective experience and as curated urban products.
This ambivalence is precisely what makes them sociologically relevant.
Understanding light festivals in Portugal allows us to grasp how the urban night is being reshaped through cultural policy, tourism strategies, and the broader dynamics of contemporary capitalism. It also reinforces the need to take nightlife seriously, not only as a domain of leisure, but as a key site where urban transformations unfold.
Open Access: https://ojsull.webs.ull.es/index.php/Revista/article/view/4326
Manuel Garcia-Ruiz 