Nuit Blanche

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The crowded steps of the Campidoglio in Italy during their 2006 Nuit Blanche

The artistically lit interior of the Grand Palais in Paris, 2005.

Nuit Blanche (White Night in English) is an annual all-night cultural festival. The festival lasts from sundown until sunrise on the first Saturday and Sunday in October and has, since its premiere in Paris under the socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoe in 2002, spread to many other cities internationally, including Berlin, Brussels, Madrid, Montreal, Rome, Skopje, Toronto, and Valletta amongst others.

Taken off from a similar German festival that began in 1997 (see Long Night of Museums), a Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions offer free admission to all, with the downtown core of a city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.