Frequently asked questions
The Fête des Lumières is a free festival, with no admission charge. It is financed by the City of Lyon, with the support of local businesses, who become sponsors of the festival in various ways: by contributing cash, by making a donation in kind or by directly financing a light project. Public partners also help to co-produce and finance certain works of art.
3 special food zones have been installed in the city centre and festival:
- Place Bellecour (2nd district)
- Parc Blandan (7th district)
- Place Gabriel Péri (7th disctrict)
You can find the location of public toilets on the lyon.fr interactive map.
3 supervised toilets (Bellecour, St Jean and République) will be open from 8am to 11.30pm throughout the Fête des Lumières (7, 8, 9 and 10 December).
During the festival, dogs are forbidden to enter Tête d'Or park and Blandan park.
In the city center, in the pedestrian zone, they're allowed except for dogs of categories 1 & 2.
The Lumignons du Cœur campaign supports a different charity every year. A collaborative light installation is created using the candles bought by visitors and the proceeds go to charity.
If you are a bright spark with a great idea for a festival installation, you need to submit your project during the call for projects launched every year in April on the Festival of Lights website.
The Festival of Lights has been integrating energy efficiency for many years, which is also one of the pillars of the City's lighting plan. The amount of electricity consumption linked to the Festival of Lights is very low.
For example, a classic mapping (projection) on a building facade consumes 12 kWh. This corresponds to a hundred televisions on for an hour.
The main purpose of ISO 20121 is to factor sustainable development into events organisation.
The City of Lyon has carefully controlled the energy consumption of the Festival of Lights for many years. Based on the findings of a study conducted in 2019, the energy consumption of the Festival of Lights only accounts for 0.1% of the total annual lighting bill, i.e., 0.36 day of annual energy consumption. This figure can be explained as follows:
- the light installations mainly use LEDs which are highly energy-efficient,
- the equipment used offers good energy performance,
- the permanent lighting of a number of heritage sites (Saint-Jean Cathedral, the Law Courts, Fourvière Basilica, Les Célestins theatre) is switched off during the Festival.
In line with the City’s sustainability and energy transition policy, the Festival of Lights is preparing for ISO 20121 Events Sustainability certification which will induce adaptations to the event from 2023.
In parallel, an environmental impact criterion will be included in the selection of artworks.