White Light Night
Government Street (multiple locations)
Baton Rouge
Nov. 21, 2025
White Light Night is a tradition in Baton Rouge, but it took me three times attending it and its summer counterpart (Hot Art Cool Nights) to feel like I got it right.
The festival takes place on Government Street and features local artists, food vendors and musicians. Businesses up and down the street can register their locations as part of the festival and open their space up for vendors and events. Electric Depot hosted a late-night version of their Saturday local arts market, Pelican to Mars hosted a huge food court with their regular pop-up vendors. Leola’s/Circa 1857 opened their courtyard to artists and a trapeeze/fire-twirling performance. The strip mall containing Radio Bar and TimeWarp had their own set of pop-ups too.
Baton Rouge has an amazing pop-up culture, especially when it comes to food. It's a way that people can test the market for cuisines that aren't prevalent in Baton Rouge yet like triangle onigiri, Korean food, or Japanese desserts.
Events like White Night Light are an opportunity for people to try several of them in one go without having to drive to multiple locations across the city or wait for different days. For example, the Pelican to Mars food vendors usually rotate. They do special events, and you’d have to be diligent about keeping up with social media to go on a day when a particular stall will be there. On White Light Night, they’re all there. You just have to brave the crowds to buy their food.
I wove my way inside House Brew’s usual space to try Sushi Iku, a sushi pop-up I’ve heard nothing but good things about. I had the Flaming Salmon Roll: a shrimp temura, snowcrab cream cheese roll topped with salmon and some special sauces. It was so well constructed and none of the flavors were overpowering. Totally worth it. I also got to try a BBQ pork Thai pastry from Bowl on the Geaux (perfectly flaky, subtly sweet).
But this worked out because I knew what I wanted. I had scoped out the pop-ups I wanted to try on social media days in advance, and I was willing to wait for my food. The lines at Pelican are overwhelming on White Light Night. In previous years, I’ve skipped out on some vendors, like Sushi Iku, because their lines were so long. I wish the vendors were spread out down the street a little more so the lines had somewhere to go, but there are two problems with that: 1) That might kill the convenience of having everything in one place. 2) There aren’t lights.
White Light Night is functionally multiple different block parties down Government Street each with their own music, entertainment, food and more, but there isn't that much on the street between the hubs. Despite the name, there is a dearth of functioning street lights on Government Street. So moving from hub to hub requires venturing through the darkness, sometimes for long stretches at a time.
The walk from Pelican to Mars to Leola’s is half a mile, and in the dark, that’s kind of far to ask people to venture out. In the past, I tended not to. It just felt too far. Parking is difficult because there are so many people, so driving isn’t always a safe bet. This year, the stretch of Government Street (and a little bit of Jefferson Highway) where official vendors were located encompassed 2.9 miles. That’s almost a 5K. To the credit of the event, there were shuttles, but in the hours that I was at the event, I didn’t see one, and I don’t know how long I would have waited to get on one.
White Light Night is one of the few events in Baton Rouge people in New Orleans will travel to the city for. It’s a gem of Baton Rouge culture and showcases the talent we have in this city. It’s getting bigger and bigger every time, but as it does, it shouldn't just take over more streets. It needs to fill the gaps between the hubs. Hopefully, we'll eventually just be having one big block party, but that starts with lights.
