When is the Amsterdam Light Festival 2026?

Edition 15 runs from 26 November 2026 to 17 January 2027, which is 53 nights. Those dates come from the festival's own home page. Be careful with third parties here: on the day we checked, the first Google result said 55 nights, and two boat operators selling festival cruises had the end date as 18 January.

Do you have to pay to see the Amsterdam Light Festival?

No. The festival states in its own ticket FAQ that the artworks are placed in public space and are freely accessible to anyone. What costs money is the interpretation and the transport: the Light Walk audio guide in the festival app is 6,99 euros, and a canal cruise starts at 29,75 from the festival's own shop. Walking the route with no app at all is free.

How much is an Amsterdam Light Festival cruise?

From 29,75 euros in the festival's own ticket shop, with children 4 to 12 at half price and under-4s free. On booking platforms the same kind of 75-minute festival cruise runs from about 23,80 to 52 euros. The best rated one we found, at 4.89 over 534 reviews, was 28 euros, which is less than the official price.

Is the Amsterdam Light Festival worth it?

The locals are blunt about it. In a thread about the previous edition with 123 upvotes, 23 of the 25 comments were negative, several comparing it unfavourably with GLOW in Eindhoven, and the one person defending it was defending the free walk rather than the paid boat. If you are in Amsterdam anyway in December, walk the route and spend nothing. Travelling for it is a harder case to make.

Can you cancel an Amsterdam Light Festival ticket?

Not if you buy from the festival. Its ticket FAQ says purchased tickets cannot be cancelled, although you can move to a different date or time with the same boat company up to 24 hours before. Every festival cruise we found on Viator, by contrast, offers a full refund up to 24 hours before departure. In December, when your flight is the thing most likely to fail, that difference is the whole point.

Is the boat better than walking the route?

They are different routes. Most of the installations are designed to be seen from the water, so the boat sees works the walk does not, and it is heated. The walk is free, has no fixed departure time, and lets you stop. At 28 euros against 6,99, the boat needs to be four times better for the money to make sense, and nobody on this site has been on it to tell you whether it is.

Amsterdam Light Festival 2026: dates, what it costs and whether to take the boat

The short answer

Amsterdam Light Festival edition 15 runs from 26 November 2026 to 17 January 2027, which is 53 nights, and the artworks themselves are free: the festival states in its own ticket FAQ that they sit in public space and anyone can enjoy them. What you pay for is interpretation and transport. The audio guide in the app is 6,99 EUR, a canal cruise starts at 29,75 EUR from the festival itself, and the best rated boat we found costs 28,00 EUR and can be cancelled, which the official one cannot.

Three of the four sources selling this festival get the dates wrong. The first result in Google says 55 nights and two operators end it on 18 January. We counted the festival's own dates: 53.
Buying direct is the worse deal here, which is unusual. The official cruise starts at 29,75 EUR and cannot be cancelled. Every festival boat on the platforms refunds in full up to 24 hours out, and the best rated is 1,75 EUR cheaper.
The boat costs 4.0 times what the walk costs, for the same art. It sees works from the water that the route on foot does not, and it is heated in December. Whether that is worth 28,00 EUR is the only real question on this page.
The people who live there are not enthusiastic. Of 25 comments in a local thread about the last edition, 23 were negative, and the one defending it was defending the free walk.

Best rated, cheaper than the festival's own, and refundable

Eco Boats Light Festival cruise

4.89 · 534 reviews

It is the best rated festival boat with a real sample, 4.89 over 534 reviews, and it costs 1,75 EUR less than the festival's own cheapest cruise while being the only one of the two you can get your money back from. It caps at 28 rather than the 60 to 80 of the big canal boats, leaves from Stationsplein in front of Centraal, and carries a written guide in eight languages including Spanish even though the skipper speaks English and Dutch. Two things to know: the operator decides on the day whether the boat is covered or half open depending on the weather, and its own listing says the festival runs until 18 January, which is a day later than the festival says. Nobody here has taken it. The full reasoning, with the figures

28,00 EUR

75 min · max 28 · free cancellation · from Centraal

Check availability on Viator

Photo is illustrative, not from the tour. Photo: Alf van Beem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The dates, and the night count

The festival's own home page carries one line: edition 15, 26 November 2026 to 17 January 2027. That is the only source that can be right by definition, and it is the one to book flights against. You will see the end date given as 18 January in several places, including the listing of the boat operator recommended below, so it is worth knowing which one the festival itself stands behind.

The night count follows from those dates and is arithmetic rather than a claim: five nights in November, thirty-one in December and seventeen in January, which is 53. The practical consequence is small but real: if you are booking flights for the third week of January, a day either way is the difference between seeing the festival and arriving to one that closed. One of those December nights is the 31st, and it is the one night no tram will take you home afterwards: New Year's Eve closes Centraal and stops every tram, metro, train and bus from 20:00 to 01:00.

Dates read on 29 September 2026 on the festival's own home page, and the 18 January end date on the Viator listing of the boat operator recommended below, the same day.

What each way of seeing it costs

The festival is a foundation with no structural funding, and it is unusually straight about what it is charging for: the artworks are placed in the public space where they are freely accessible for anyone to enjoy, in its own words, and the ticket covers the art, the artists and the interpretation.

Every way of seeing Amsterdam Light Festival, cheapest first

How	Price	Duration	What you should know
Walk the route, no app	free	Any time	The festival says the art is in public space
Light Walk in the festival app	6,99 EUR	Any time	Audio guide, map, and it also works if you sail your own boat
Kids Walk in the app	3,99 EUR	Any time	Quiz and scavenger hunt, aimed at 7 to 12
Cruise, platform, best rated	28,00 EUR	75 min	Free cancellation up to 24 h before
Cruise, festival's own shop	from 29,75 EUR	Varies	Cannot be cancelled, only moved
Foodwalk in the app	33,50 EUR to 43,50 EUR	Any time	Bites and drinks at restaurants along the route

Swipe to see the rest of the table.

Dates, artwork access and prices: amsterdamlightfestival.com, its home page and its ticket FAQ, consulted on 29 September 2026. The prices are the ones the festival publishes today, which are still labelled edition 14 on its own FAQ; sales for edition 15 open in October 2026.

Two numbers are worth holding on to. The boat costs 4.0 times the app, for art that is the same art. And the festival premium on a canal cruise is about 11,51 EUR: an ordinary evening cruise on the same canals is 16,49 EUR, as we measured in our guide to which canal cruise to take. What the extra buys is the festival route, which the ordinary boats do not sail, and a guide who explains the installations.

The one case where buying direct is the worse deal

On this site we have twice argued the opposite. For the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum the advice was to buy from the institution, because the platforms charged more for the same ticket. The Light Festival inverts it, and the reason is not the price alone.

The festival's ticket FAQ is unambiguous: purchased tickets cannot be cancelled. You can move to another date and time with the same boat company up to 24 hours before, and that is the whole flexibility on offer. Every single festival cruise we found on the platforms, by contrast, refunds 100% up to 24 hours before departure. In a season where fog, storms and cancelled flights are the normal risk rather than the exception, that is not a small print detail.

And the price runs the same way. The official cruise starts at 29,75 EUR. The best rated boat on Viator is 28,00 EUR. The cheapest with a usable number of reviews is 23,80 EUR. There is no version of this where the official shop is the cheap option. It is worth saying that buying direct does send the money to the foundation that pays the artists, which is a reason, just not a financial one.

The festival boats, side by side

Six products, all of them 75 or 90 minutes, all of them with free cancellation, and a spread of 23,80 EUR to 52,00 EUR. The ratings are what separate them, and they separate them more than the prices do.

Light Festival cruises on sale for December 2026

Boat	From	Rating · reviews	Length	Note
Eco Boats, Light Festival cruise	28,00 EUR	4.89 · 534	75 min	Best rated, and cheaper than the festival's own
Captain Dave	52,00 EUR	4.89 · 123	90 min	Same rating, 90 minutes, and almost twice the price
Open bar, electric boat	29,75 EUR	4.73 · 265	75 min	Unlimited drinks included in the price
Unlimited drinks, 75 min	31,80 EUR	4.36 · 701	75 min	The most reviewed of the festival boats, and the weakest rating of the big ones
Snack and unlimited drinks	29,75 EUR	4.29 · 128	75 min	Same price as the official one, lower rated
Audio guide, mulled wine	23,80 EUR	4.34 · 32	75 min	Cheapest with a decent sample, audio guide instead of a person

Swipe to see the rest of the table.

Boat prices, ratings and review counts: Viator API, 29 September 2026, for departures in December 2026, lowest adult price per product. Prices move; check before booking.

The pattern worth seeing: price and rating are not related here. The 52 euro boat and the 28 euro boat have the same 4.89, and the most reviewed product of the six, with 701 reviews, has the weakest rating of the serious ones at 4.36. Paying more buys you ninety minutes instead of seventy-five and, on the Captain Dave product, a named skipper. It does not buy a better rated trip.

Book any of these

A wall of coloured neon signs in Korean lettering installed along the Schippersgracht during Amsterdam Light Festival, reflected in the black canal water, with four people watching from the quayside

Our pick

Eco Boats, Light Festival cruise

4.89 · 534

Best rated, and cheaper than the festival's own

28,00 EUR

75 min · free cancellation

Check availability

A lit canal boat marked BOATAMSTERDAM on a canal beneath threads of white light strung above the water, with pink-lit facades behind

Audio guide, mulled wine

4.34 · 32

Cheapest with a decent sample, audio guide instead of a person

23,80 EUR

75 min · free cancellation

Check availability

The Magere Brug lit with rows of white bulbs and reflected in the dark Amstel, with a red lifebuoy on a boat in the foreground

Captain Dave

4.89 · 123

Same rating, 90 minutes, and almost twice the price

52,00 EUR

90 min · free cancellation

Check availability

Photo for Eco Boats, Light Festival cruise is illustrative, not from the tour. Photo: Alf van Beem, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

What the people who live there say

The fourth result in Google for this festival is a Reddit thread, which is usually a sign that the editorial coverage is thin. It is worth reading before you book anything. The thread announced the opening of edition 14 and collected 123 upvotes and 25 comments.

23 of those 25 comments were negative about the festival. The recurring complaints are that it has got less ambitious each year, that standing in Dutch December rain for it is a poor trade, and that 4 of them rate GLOW in Eindhoven above it. Exactly one comment defended the festival, and what it defended was walking the route yourself, not paying for anything.

We are not going to pretend that settles it. A local subreddit is a self selecting group and residents of any city are hard on its tourist events. But it is the only body of opinion available that is not written by someone selling a boat ticket, and it points the same way the arithmetic does: if you are in Amsterdam in December anyway, walk it; if you are considering the trip for the festival, that is a harder case.

The artwork list for this edition is not published yet, so nobody can tell you today how good it is, and the piece counts quoted by operators are their own.