The Portland Winter Light Festival Will Go On In 2021—With Pandemic-Related Changes

The sixth annual celebration of illuminated installations will take place over two weekends and be spread out across the city.

Portland Winter Light Festival (Connor Flynn)
By Andi Prewitt

Most organizers have pulled the plug on large-scale celebrations for the first quarter of 2021, but the Portland Winter Light Festival will go on—things are just going to look a little different.

The sixth annual event is now scheduled to take place over two weekends in February to prevent crowds from mobbing the illuminated installations at the same time. Neither OMSI nor the Eastbank Esplanade serves as hosts to any of the activities.

Instead, attendees can expect to find displays spread out across the city, including pop-up window pieces, video projections and architectural lighting. The hope is that by avoiding large clusters of installations, people can better physically distance.

So why not just scrap the whole festival, as the pandemic shows no signs of subsiding just yet? Organizers say Portlanders could use a little bright spot in their lives coming out of 2020.

To add a little more brilliance to the 2021 festival, they are encouraged to decorate their homes, bikes and ensembles with lights during the designated weekends: Feb. 5-6 and 12-13.

Related: Check Out These Photos of the Winter Light Festival.

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