Lights that Gather: Attendance Motivations and Emotions in Light Festivals as

Night-time Practices

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 appropria-tion 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.