Still no Brighton Christmas market for 2026. The BID says a new Christmas lighting scheme is coming, date unannounced. Free fairs: Wagner Hall 12-13 Dec, Dome 5 Dec.

Is there a Brighton Christmas market in 2026?

Not as of 29 September 2026.

Updated 29 September: Brilliant Brighton says it is preparing to launch a new Christmas lighting scheme this year; still no switch-on date and no market.

No operator, council or tourism body has announced a Brighton Christmas market for 2026, and there was no main market in 2025 either. The last one was the Brighton Winter Fayre on St Peter’s Square in December 2024, which opened on 5 December and cancelled its final weekend, 21 and 22 December, because of forecast high winds. The biggest confirmed festive markets in the city this year are both indoor and both free: Brighton’s Festive Makers Fair at Wagner Hall on 12 and 13 December, and the Brighton Etsy Christmas Fair on Saturday 5 December in the Brighton Dome Concert Hall Foyer.

The other autumn question is when the lights go on. That date is not announced either, but the lights themselves are paid for until 2031. What follows is what is actually established and where the announcements will appear.

The lights are paid for until 2031

This is the solid part. Brighton’s city centre Christmas lights are not a council expense. They are funded by Brilliant Brighton, the business improvement district, out of a levy on its member businesses.

Those businesses voted in a renewal ballot in December 2025 and backed a new £2.6m plan: 65.8% in favour by number of businesses and 72.6% by rateable value. The new five-year term started on 1 July 2026, and the plan names “continuation of Brighton’s much-loved Christmas lights, alongside hanging baskets and summer decorations” as one of the things the money buys.

So the lights are secure for this year and the four after it. What has not been published is the date they go up.

When to expect the switch-on date

Brilliant Brighton’s only festive line so far in 2026 is the 22 September note that a new Christmas lighting scheme is being prepared. No date has been given.

The pattern from previous years:

Year Lights on Notes
2017 Thursday 16 November Switch-on ceremony from 5.15pm
2018 Thursday 15 November Ceremony in East Street from 4.30pm
2021 Thursday 18 November Switch-on event, street art design
2025 Friday 14 November No ceremony; lights simply came on

The important change is in that last row. The public switch-on ceremony has gone. In 2025 the BID announced the lights would “shine from Friday 14th November” with no event attached, and put on a separate Festive Afternoon on Saturday 6 December instead, 2pm to 6pm, with live performances and a window dressing competition. If you are planning around a countdown and a celebrity flicking a switch, that has not been part of Brighton’s Christmas for several years.

The announcement has landed in the first week of November in recent years, roughly a week before the lights. Watch brilliantbrighton.com from late October.

Which streets get them: North Street, Western Road, East Street, parts of The Lanes and North Laine, and Preston Street. That was the 2025 footprint. One detail worth remembering if you notice a gap: in 2025 two displays at the bottom of North Street stayed dark at first because of a power supply problem, and the BID said so publicly rather than leaving people guessing.

The Christmas market is the genuinely open question

Brighton has not had a stable Christmas market for years, and the reason is commercial rather than seasonal.

Brighton Christmas Festival ran a large market on Valley Gardens under a three-year lease and gave it up a year early. The council confirmed the end of it in a July 2023 release: “Rising costs have meant that the current operator has decided to withdraw from the event planned for Valley Gardens this December.” The council’s answer was not to find a replacement of the same size but to plan “a new, smaller scale, community led event”, with Cllr Alan Robins saying: “We’re thinking brass bands, choirs, gifts, crafts and fun for all the family.” The council said at the time it had not settled where it would be or who would run it.

A smaller fair did return in December 2024: the Brighton Winter Fayre on St Peter’s Square, at the top of Valley Gardens, run under a one-year arrangement by three local events companies. It opened on 5 December and had a rough month. Brighton and Hove News reported that the organisers cancelled the final weekend of 21 and 22 December because of Met Office predictions of high winds, refunding ticket holders.

In 2025 there was no replacement. The University of Sussex student paper The Badger reported in December 2025 that the fayre’s organisers had stepped back and that there would be no Christmas market, or a similar event, that year. Since then the council has published nothing further about the market, and it does not appear on the council’s outdoor events programme, which covers park and open space bookings rather than commercial leases of this kind.

What we could check for 2026, and what it shows. VisitBrighton’s own Christmas listings, run by the council’s tourism arm, carry no Christmas market and no lights switch-on. The events they do list for this winter are:

  • Grand Winter Makers Fair, 21 and 22 November, The British Engineerium, The Droveway, Hove
  • The Christmas Orchestra, 21 November, All Saints Church, Eaton Road, Hove
  • Glow Wild, 26 November to 2 January, Wakehurst, near Haywards Heath
  • Leonardslee Lights, from 27 November, near Horsham
  • The Snowman, 19 December
  • Burning the Clocks, 21 December, Madeira Drive

Two more listings have appeared since our last check, and one of them is the biggest free market in the city. Re-checked on Tuesday 23 September, VisitBrighton has added Brighton’s Festive Makers Fair at Wagner Hall, the Shoreham Christmas Makers Fair and Artist Open Houses Winter from 28 November. Still no Christmas market, and still no lights switch-on.

Brighton’s Festive Makers Fair is on Saturday 12 and Sunday 13 December 2026, 10.30am to 4.30pm both days, at Wagner Hall, 2 Regency Road, BN1 2RU, free to get in with no ticket, and the organiser Paper Daisy Events puts more than 75 independent makers across the hall, the stage and the Fig Tree Garden, with a bar serving mulled wine and cider (Paper Daisy Events).

Check the organiser’s dates, not the venue’s. Wagner Hall’s own events page for the same fair still shows 13 December 2025 and “over 80 exhibitors”, a year out of date (Wagner Hall). If you turn up on the Saturday only because the venue page named one day, you will miss half of it.

The lights are changing this year. Brilliant Brighton’s September 2026 retail vacancy update, posted on 22 September, says the BID team “is preparing for a vibrant season ahead, including the launch of a new Christmas lighting scheme.” That is the first festive line the BID has published in 2026. It gives no date, no list of streets and no word on whether a switch-on event returns. Re-checked on 29 September, nothing newer on its feed mentions Christmas, and VisitBrighton still lists no switch-on and no market.

The other market with a confirmed 2026 date inside the city is indoor. The Brighton Etsy Christmas Fair is on Saturday 5 December 2026, 10am to 4pm, in the Brighton Dome Concert Hall Foyer, free to get in. Brighton Dome lists it as the Brighton Etsy Team’s 11th annual market, with more than 90 local makers picked from over 200 applications.

That is an absence of evidence rather than proof there will be no market: an operator could still be signed and announced in October, and the listings are not a contract either way. But if you are planning a December weekend around a Brighton Christmas market, do not book on the assumption that a large one exists. The council itself said in 2023 that it was moving to something smaller, and nothing published since has reversed that.

Where the announcements will actually appear

  • Lights date: brilliantbrighton.com, usually the first week of November.
  • Market or festive fair: the council newsroom and VisitBrighton’s what’s on pages.
  • Late night shopping: the BID has run Thursday evening trading in North Laine through December in past years, announced in late November.

Frequently asked questions about the Brighton Christmas market

Is there a Brighton Christmas market in 2026?

Nothing has been announced as of 23 September 2026. No council release, VisitBrighton listing or operator has named a Valley Gardens or city centre Christmas market for this year.

When was the last Brighton Christmas market?

December 2024, when the Brighton Winter Fayre ran on St Peter’s Square from 5 December and cancelled its last weekend because of forecast high winds. There was no main market in 2025.

Where can I go to a Christmas market in Brighton this year?

Three indoor fairs are confirmed, all free. Brighton’s Festive Makers Fair is on 12 and 13 December at Wagner Hall, 10.30am to 4.30pm, with more than 75 makers. The Brighton Etsy Christmas Fair is on Saturday 5 December, 10am to 4pm, in the Brighton Dome Concert Hall Foyer. The Grand Winter Makers Fair is on 21 and 22 November at The British Engineerium in Hove.

When do the Brighton Christmas lights go on in 2026?

No date yet. In 2025 they came on on Friday 14 November with no ceremony, and the announcement normally comes from Brilliant Brighton in the first week of November.

Getting into town for it

The lit streets are all within about ten minutes’ walk of Brighton station, and North Street, Western Road and East Street are the ones to walk if you want the full run. Western Road is the complication this year. The reconstruction between Holland Road and Montpelier Road is due to start on 28 September with about 45 days of phased closures, and it is one of the streets that carries the lights. Check the roadworks and travel page before you plan a route, and the Brighton parking guide if you are driving in, because December weekends are the worst of the year for the central car parks.

Still to be confirmed: the 2026 lights date, expected early November. Whether there is a Christmas market at all, with no announcement date published by anyone. This page will be updated when either is settled.

Sources