This morning, several public officials and community leaders gathered at Fountain Square to announce plans for this year’s BLINK festival, the largest celebration of public art and light in the United States.
In 2024, over two million people attended BLINK, bringing $205 million in economic impact to the city. This year, the art festival is celebrating its tenth anniversary when it runs from Thursday, October 8, to Sunday, October 11, which means there are plenty of big changes coming to the festival known for covering Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky in a glorious display of well-illuminated art.
Over 90 artists are participating in this year’s festival—the most the event has ever had—and BLINK leadership is expanding the festival’s mural program across the river to Northern Kentucky by painting more than ten new murals in Covington.
In addition, a new opening ceremony titled “Ready, Set, BLINK!” replaces the parade from years prior. Instead of a traditional parade, the festival is taking over five blocks near TQL Stadium for a gargantuan community-focused block party full of local DJs, interactive art installations, hands-on light/art creation stations and plenty of food vendors. At sundown, the event will “turn on the lights,” so to speak, with a drone and pyrotechnics show that will officially kick off BLINK 2026.
“One of the things that makes BLINK truly special is that it is a platform for the region to become a global canvas and a creative discovery,” said Kareem Simpson, leader of Sparklight Creative Group and one of BLINK’s curatorial ambassadors. “Every two years, visitors from around the world come to experience what happens when art, technology and community come together in really extraordinary ways.”
This year, the festival received more than 800 submissions from all across the globe—”and yes, we went through every single one,” Simpson said, which “speaks to BLINK’s growing reputation as one of the premier art festivals … anywhere in the world.”
Local arts nonprofit organization ArtsWave is once again the festival’s chief sponsor and will also simultaneously be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2026—which ArtsWave is celebrating during BLINK with a giant art installation at the Aronoff Center.
Ryan Strand, Vice President of Communications at ArtsWave, told CityBeat that the installation is their first at BLINK that will be “focused on community storytelling” to illuminate all that the organization has accomplished over the past century, and that the festival is “a tangible expression of how our arts make our region vibrant. It shows the world that our region is defined by our arts, and that’s no accident.”
“BLINK is an event that’s come to define this region, and how our arts bring us together,” he said. “They strengthen our neighborhoods, they draw visitors from across the country. BLINK shows the world what a community looks like when it commits year after year to its arts, and how our story is nearly a century in the making.”
At the event, Mayor Aftab Pureval spoke on what the festival means to the city at large.
“What I love about BLINK is that not only does it bring us together as a community, but it’s also absolutely free, and it is driven by wonder, by seeing these buildings brought to life with this light and with this art,” he said. “For generations, this city has invested in arts all across the board, and it’s wonderful to be able to put on a show to highlight our investments in public art … People of all ages can come and walk around our urban core and just enjoy what it means to be a Cincinnatian and have hope for the future.”
For more information, visit the official BLINK website.
