Lights that gather: Attendance motivations and emotions in light festivals as night-time practices

Abstract

This article explores the motivations for attending the Lumina light festival in Cascais, Portugal, drawing on a mixed-methods approach that combines 440 questionnaire-based surveys in 2017 and 457 in 2018 with ethnographic observation conducted during both editions. It examines how participation in the festival is shaped by affective, social, and everyday dynamics, moving beyond functionalist accounts of cultural leisure. The findings reveal that the event’s nocturnal setting plays a central role in reconfiguring the appropriation of urban space, modes of social interaction, and aesthetic engagement. As a temporally situated intervention, the festival introduces a momentary rupture in the rhythms of urban life, fostering alternative uses of time and space. This study contributes empirical evidence on how ephemeral cultural events shape collective experiences of the city at night, offering insights into the interplay between leisure, emotion, and urban temporality.