Brighten up the holidays with the Amsterdam Light Festival

Wintertime in Amsterdam could be dark and gloomy but the Amsterdam Light Festival brightens up the long nights of winter in the Dutch capital. This year is the festival’s thirteenth edition, and celebrates rituals that bring people together as special occasions and in everyday life. Discover all you need to know about the Amsterdam Light Festival in 2024/2025 and book your tickets!

• 2024/2025 will see the 13th edition of the Amsterdam Light Festival
• The theme this winter is Rituals
• The lights will be on every night from 28 November until 19 January, except New Year's Eve
• This year features 27 works of light art
• The official route starts at Amsterdam Central Station but you can start anywhere you want

Ever since 2012, the winters in Amsterdam have been lit up by the bright lights of the Amsterdam Light Festival as well as the yearly Christmas decorations. The festival is dedicated to light art, which are installed on and above the Amsterdam canals. Over the past decade, the various themes of the festival have allowed artists to create artwork which brought contemporary issues to light, surprised, told stories and transformed the urban surroundings of the artwork.

This year’s theme is Rituals. Each artist has created a piece that in some way represents a ritual, a set of actions done or words said in the same way every time. From a shared meal and calming breathing exercises to a religious festival, they are all human rituals.

This year the route is around 6.5 kilometres long and has 27 works of art displayed along it. We don’t want to give away too much about the art displayed this year… but we can give you a peek at some of the pieces and tell you about the ideas behind them.

Contemporary artist Wilhelmusvlug has created In Bloom, a beautiful wave of flower petals. Flowers are part of many different rituals: weddings, funerals, fertility, forgiveness, remembrance and love rituals. The Netherlands has a strong bond with flowers, with 60% of the global flower trade grown in country, a National Tulip Day, and of course the annual opening of the Keukenhof.

Water is important to everyone, especially in a city like Amsterdam that owes much of its greatness to the water. Mermaid's Song by Flo Arnold reminds of this close bond to the water as well as our responsibility to respect and protect it. The scales of the piece consist of recycled plastic, and are shaped like a crescent moon, which affects the tides.

Omen by Sergey Kim is a several metres tall lightning bolt frozen in time. Lightning plays a part in many religions and believes, often symbolising nature's beauty and power. A real lightning bolt is so powerful that Omen would have to be powered up consistently for 496 hours (a little over 20 days), to consume all the power of one lightning bolt.

There are two ways to enjoy the Amsterdam Light Festival. You can walk the route on foot, or you can take a canal cruise. This year there are 3 pieces exclusive to the walking route. Maybe you’ll want to try both options?

We believe the water route is the most comfortable way to enjoy the light art around Amsterdam. The heated boats from LOVERS Canal Cruises have windows all around, so that you can see the art on both sides of the canal. The Amsterdam Light Festival canal cruises come with an audio guide in English and Dutch, which will tell you all about the different artworks and the artists.

Together with LOVERS Canal Cruises, Tours & Tickets offers four ticket options to enjoy the Amsterdam Light Festival. There are three different departure points, two just outside Amsterdam Central Station, one at the main LOVERS dock and the other at Restaurant Loetje, and one at the Rijksmuseum. The fourth option shows you the Amsterdam canals by day and night, with the first focusing on the sights along the canals and the second on the art from the festival.

Like most western cities, Amsterdam’s streets are decorated with Christmas lights during the holiday season and a big Christmas tree takes pride of place on Dam Square. With the addition of the light artworks on the canals, Amsterdam is a shining light in the darkness of the cold winter months. This makes a Light Festival cruise a great thing to do in Amsterdam.

During an Amsterdam Light Festival Canal Cruise around Christmas time, you can see the amazing light art of the festival as well as the Christmas decorations of those who live in the canal houses. The Dutch are known for their lack of curtains, which allows you to look straight into their living rooms. During the holiday season this is especially fun, so why not celebrate Christmas with an Amsterdam Light Festival canal cruise?