“No beam for a while. Restart in about 20 months.” Early this morning, operators of the ESRF Control room turned off the beam, ending 26 years of successful operation of the European Synchrotron, the world’s most powerful synchrotron light source. 2018 is a key year in the history of the ESRF. Thirty years after the signature of the ESRF Convention, the ESRF’s shining light has been put in standby mode. The ESRF now enters a 20-month shutdown and will dismantle its flagship storage ring to make way for a revolutionary X-ray source, an Extremely Brilliant Source (EBS), open for users in 2020.