Pécs will glow July 2–5, 2026, as the Zsolnay Light Festival floods the city with large-scale projections, site-specific light art, and late-night magic. Now in its tenth year, the city’s signature event attracts well over 100,000 visitors, transforming atmospheric streets, squares, galleries, and a handful of venues that open only for the festival. After dark, Hungarian and international artists animate façades with moving images, bathe alleys in color, and draw crowds into immersive, interactive worlds—this year with a bigger nod than ever to Pécs-born icon Victor Vasarely.
Four nights, one glowing city
Historic buildings are wrapped in light, streets roll out glowing carpets, and the Cathedral’s monumental front becomes a living screen for the festival’s showstopper: the Zsolnay Light Art mapping competition. The best 3D moving-image projections from around the world battle it out on the Cathedral (Székesegyház) façade, drawing the biggest crowds every year.
Walk the Path of Light
The Path of Light (Fény Útja) cuts through downtown Pécs, guiding visitors past grand, heartwarming, and sometimes extravagantly strange installations—always jaw-dropping and precisely tuned to each space. Expect light beings drifting on seas of tulle, playful AI interactions, and surprises spilling into courtyards and corners you won’t enter at any other time of year.
Street arts, new circus, and late-night learning
Beyond the illuminations, the festival blends light art with street performances, concerts, theater, and contemporary circus shows. Interactive, entertaining side programs double as pop-up classrooms, delivering fresh, creative content for all ages. The invited artists and collectives—local and international—are widely recognized and help lead this fast-evolving field.
Vasarely at 120: Color, geometry, illusion
The jubilee edition unfolds in a special artistic context: 2026 marks the 120th anniversary of Victor Vasarely’s birth, and Pécs is celebrating a yearlong Vasarely memorial program. The festival theme—PLASTI-CITÉ // SZÍNES VÁROS (COLORFUL CITY)—pushes contemporary reimaginings of Vasarely’s explorations of visual perception, geometry, and optical illusion. For Vasarely, art carried social responsibility: it should exit elite galleries, embed itself in daily life, and belong to everyone. His “colorful city” envisioned a humane, inspiring environment where art isn’t decoration but an active, shared experience.
Bring family, bring friends
Set in Pécs’s Mediterranean-flavored center, the four-day festival is made for families and groups of friends, with light paintings, installations, and a stacked slate of companion events. Summer nights, glowing streets, thousands of footsteps—Pécs shines brightest July 2–5, 2026.
