Let’s not let the lights go out
What the end of Durham’s Lumiere tells us about the value of light festivals for cities
In November 2025, the Lumiere Festival in Durham (UK) took place for the last time — a decision shaped by rising costs and shifting public funding priorities.
In nine editions across sixteen years, the festival transformed the historic city of Durham into a temporary open-air gallery, bringing contemporary light art into public space and attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. Organised by Artichoke and curated under the artistic direction of Helen Marriage, Lumiere became one of Europe’s most recognised light festivals — not only for its scale, but for the quality of its artistic vision, its relationship with place, and its deep connection to local communities.
Its closure is not just the end of a festival. It is a signal.
At a moment when many cities are facing increasing financial pressure, competing priorities, and rising demands on public budgets, cultural events — even highly successful ones — are becoming fragile. Lumiere Durham’s final edition reminds us that light festivals cannot be taken for granted. They need to be understood, valued, and defended for what they truly bring to cities.
More than just an event
Light festivals are often discussed in terms of visitor numbers, hotel nights, or economic return. These metrics matter — and in many contexts they are necessary. But they are not sufficient.
As discussed during LUCI’s Light Festival Working Group meeting in Lyon in December, cities across Europe and beyond are increasingly realising that the main value of light festivals lies beyond the purely economic layer.
What light festivals do for a city:
- They create moments of collective experience in public space.
- They foster a sense of belonging, pride, and shared identity.
- They make culture accessible, free, and inclusive.
- They support artistic creation, experimentation, and local talent development.
- They reshape how citizens and visitors perceive their city — emotionally, socially, and symbolically.
In Durham, Lumiere was not simply a visitor attraction. It became part of the city’s identity. It allowed residents to rediscover familiar streets, landmarks, and public spaces through art. It brought people together across generations and social backgrounds. It positioned Durham internationally as a place of creativity, culture, and openness.
In her recent article for The Guardian, Helen Marriage, Artistic Director of Artichoke and long-time driving force behind Lumiere said: “[The festival] has sparked joy and conversation… transforming the city into a place where light, art and community have come together”.
These impacts are real, but they are often invisible in traditional evaluation frameworks.
The challenge: what is not measured is not protected
One of the central conclusions of the Lyon discussion was clear: light festivals are vulnerable not because they lack value, but because their value is not always made visible in ways that speak to decision-makers.
Economic impact studies are often the first — and sometimes the only — form of justification available. Yet many of the most meaningful contributions of festivals are social, cultural, educational, and symbolic:
- strengthening social cohesion,
- improving the perceived quality of life,
- supporting wellbeing through joy, beauty, and shared experiences,
- building long-term cultural ecosystems and skills,
- contributing to the city’s image, attractiveness, and international profile.
When these dimensions are not documented, articulated, and communicated, festivals become easy targets in times of constraint. They appear as optional, decorative, or expendable — rather than as strategic investments in urban life.
Lumiere Durham’s closure illustrates this risk. Even a highly respected, internationally recognised festival can disappear if its full value is not structurally embedded in how a city understands and supports culture.
A responsibility for cities — and for networks
This is why LUCI considers the end of Lumiere Durham not only as a moment of reflection, but as a call to action.
Cities, organisers, cultural institutions, and networks share a responsibility to:
- better articulate what light festivals do for cities,
- develop more robust ways of assessing their social and cultural impacts,
- share stories, methods, and evidence across the network,
- and build stronger narratives that connect festivals to long-term urban strategies.
During LUCI’s Light Festival Working Group meeting in Lyon, cities expressed a strong interest in working together on this: aligning impact questions, sharing evaluation approaches, learning from different models, and building a common language around value — not only return.
The goal is not to compete or rank festivals, but to strengthen them collectively. To ensure that smaller or younger festivals can draw on the experience of more established ones. To ensure that decision-makers can see festivals not as costs, but as contributors to resilience, identity, and quality of life.
Keeping the light alive
Lumiere Durham may be ending, but what it represents should not.
It represents a belief that public space can be a place of wonder, encounter, and imagination. That cities need moments of lightness, joy, and beauty — especially in difficult times. That culture is not an accessory to urban life, but one of its foundations.
If we want light festivals to continue playing this role, we must be clearer, stronger, and more strategic in how we talk about them, evaluate them, and support them.
Let’s not let the lights go out — not in Durham, and not elsewhere.
Let’s make sure that what light festivals bring to cities is seen, understood, and valued for what it truly is.
Video & photo credits
©Artichoke; ©Matthew Andrews & Kevin Edworthy, Lumiere Durham 2025
