Bokeška noć

Bokeška noć — Boka Night — is one of Kotor's oldest summer feasts: an evening when decorated, illuminated boats parade across the bay in front of the Old Town, competing for the jury's award for the most beautiful. Following the festival's late-August Saturday pattern, the 2026 night is expected on 22 August (the 2025 edition was held on 23 August).

The stage is what makes it: the Bay of Kotor narrowing beneath the town's medieval walls, the Old Town lit along the shore, and the water itself as the parade route. Kotor's identity was shaped by the sea, and Boka Night is the summer moment when the town turns back to the water it came from.

The boat parade is the heart of the night: decorated, illuminated boats gliding across the bay in front of the Old Town, competing for the jury's award. Crews spend days decorating their boats for this single evening's parade, and the results — light, colour and invention moving across dark water — are what the crowds pack the shore to see.

The feast spreads well beyond the water: concerts run on the waterfront through the evening, and the night traditionally closes with fireworks over the bay. The rhythm is easy to follow — find a spot on the shore before the parade, stay for the music, and wait for the sky to light up at the end.

It is a spectacle rooted in the bay's maritime tradition, kept alive by the boat crews themselves — one of Kotor's oldest summer feasts, and still one of its most local in spirit even at the height of the season.

Boka Night is held in Kotor in late August, following the festival's late-August Saturday pattern; the 2026 night is expected on Saturday 22 August. The feast, the concerts and the fireworks are all free.