The Spotlight International Light Art Festival will take place in Bucharest from October 9 to 11, 2026, bringing together artists and art studios from seven countries. The 10th anniversary festival will transform the central street of Calea Victoriei into a large-scale gallery of light and digital art.
Sixteen artists from Romania, Switzerland, France, Australia, Italy, Austria, and the United Kingdom will participate in Spotlight 2026. They will present 19 projects, including interactive light installations, new media art, immersive projects, and large-scale video mapping.
The theme of the tenth Spotlight will be “Playground.” According to the organizers’ vision, the city center will be transformed into a space for experimentation, where visitors interact with light, architecture, and new technologies, and familiar buildings and public spaces take on a completely different visual appearance.
Calea Victoriei will traditionally serve as the central venue. In 2026, the route has been expanded—it will run from the Radisson Blu Hotel to the intersection of Calea Victoriei and Splaiul Independenței. Individual events will also take place at ARCUB, Hanul Gabroveni, Mega Mall, and Promenada Mall. The total area of the festival space on Calea Victoriei will exceed 7,000 square meters.
One of the highlights of the program will be six large-scale video-mapping shows. Projections will appear on the facades of the Odeon Theater, the Telephone Palace, the Novotel Hotel, the National Military Club, the Corinthia Grand Hotel du Boulevard Bucharest, and the National Museum of Art of Romania.
Another 13 immersive installations will be placed along Calea Victoriei. Some of them will respond to visitors’ movements, blending the city’s physical space with digital images and lighting effects.
The scale of the festival can also be gauged by its technical specifications. Spotlight will require over 300 metric tons of equipment, 11 projection structures and towers, 20 laser video projectors, and over 200 light sources. Kilometers of cable and fiber-optic lines are also being used to set up the light installations.
Spotlight has been held in Bucharest since 2015 and was the first light art festival of this scale in Romania. According to the organizers, the event attracts over 300,000 visitors annually. The festival is organized by the Bucharest City Hall through the ARCUB Municipal Cultural Center.
In this anniversary year, Bucharest will also host the annual meeting of the International Light Festivals Organisation (ILO). On October 10, leaders and representatives of international light festivals, artists, and industry experts will gather at ARCUB—Hanul Gabroveni. Concurrently, on October 10–11, Spotlight Talks will take place under the theme “Light, Art & the City,” where, among other topics, the use of artificial intelligence in light installations will be discussed.
The festival will open on October 9 at 9:00 p.m. and run until 11:00 p.m. On October 10 and 11, the installations will be on view from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Admission to Spotlight 2026 is free.
