The White Nights are all-night arts festivals held in many cities in the summer. The original festival is the White Nights Festival held in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The white nights is the name given in areas of high latitude to the weeks around the summer solstice in June during which sunsets are late, sunrises are early and darkness is never complete. In Saint Petersburg, the Sun does not set until after 10 p.m., and the twilight lasts almost all night.

The White Nights Festival in Saint Petersburg is famous for fireworks and Scarlet Sails, a show celebrating the end of school year. Other festivals following this lead have arisen using names such as White Night, Light Nights or Nuit Blanche which may be held in the winter as opposed to the summer.

Some cities use the French phrase Nuit blanche (or Nuits blanches, if the event is spread over more than one night). Some use the same words in their language: White Nights, Noite Branca (Portuguese), La Notte Bianca (Italian), La Noche en Blanco (Spanish), Noaptea alba (Romanian), Nata e Bardhe (Albanian), Baltā Nakts in Latvian. Others invent their own names, such as Lejl Imdawwal ("Lit Night") in Maltese, Virada Cultural in São Paulo, Taiteiden yö ("Night of the arts") in Finland, and Kulturnatten ("Night of Culture") in Copenhagen.

The British festivals are called Light night and began in Leeds, England in 2005 as part of the launch of the region-wide Illuminate Cultural Festival. In Leeds in October 2005, these 'unusual cultural events' included a string quartet playing at the top of the Town Hall clock tower, a tour round a pitch black church with only a torch and a sinister audio-guide that could not be trusted, and a 'Treasure Hunt' from the Institute for Crazy Dancing. The Treasure Hunt involved 200 audience members being led across the city and becoming a show in their own right, collecting white boiler suits and umbrellas en route, and dancing up and down Briggate, the main shopping street, with three shire horses, an ice cream van and the bagpipes of Leeds Pipe Band.

Leeds was joined by Bradford, Sheffield, York and Hull for Light Night 2006. Several other major cities across the country including Birmingham hosted Light Night events in 2008. This has spread even further in 2009 and includes Belfast, Liverpool and Nottingham. Brighton and Hove launched an official partner event 'White Night' in 2008. Produced by Brighton and Hove Arts Commission, the event is partnered with the annual event in Amiens and sees the cities' arts venues, theatres, galleries and outdoor spaces play host to a wide selection of arts activities, shows, installations, tours and trails. In 2009, a British network of Light Night towns and cities was established.

In Finland a Night of the Arts (Finnish: Taiteiden yö, Swedish: Konstens natt) is an annual event held in several major cities in late August. First Night of the Arts was held in 1989 in Helsinki.

Paris has had its famous Nuit Blanche festival since 2001, when it was started by mayor Bertrand Delanoë.

The summer solstice in Iceland is celebrated on the 24th of June, on the day of St. John the Baptist, when only three hours of modest darkness are experienced in the region of Reykjavík. It is called Jónsmessa, and it is celebrated in small groups of family or friends around bonfires. It is however not as popular as it was before, and most people don't take any part of it, although some people hold on to it. Icelandic folk stories say that on this day all of nature is thought to work in an unusual way, with rocks and herbs gaining magical powers, cows gaining the ability to speak, seals take on human form, and elves emerge from the netherworld.