Chichester's lights go on at 5pm on Saturday 21 November at the Market Cross, after a free show from 3pm. Avenue de Chartres car park is free from 4pm.

Chichester’s Christmas lights will be switched on at 5pm on Saturday 21 November 2026, by the Market Cross. Chichester BID confirmed the date on 1 October, and it is free.

Updated 2 November: the council has published its Priory Park programme for after the switch-on, with prices for every event. Details are under “What follows the switch-on”.

Updated 31 October: parking at the Avenue de Chartres multi-storey is free from 4pm on the day, and the city’s festive market is dated, 4 to 6 and 11 to 13 December. A ticketed Starlight Trail runs across four venues from 1.30pm the same afternoon. Both below.

Updated 24 October: the BID has published the afternoon programme. Entertainment starts at the Market Cross at 3pm, hosted by Dawn Gracie, and 13 venues are signed up for the after party.

The event is called Light Up Chichester and it is run by Chichester BID, the city centre business improvement district. This year it is delivered in partnership with Chichester City Council. Chichester District Council builds its Priory Park festive programme around it.

Confirmed: Saturday 21 November, 5pm

From the BID’s announcement of 1 October:

  • When: Saturday 21 November 2026. The lights go on at 5pm.
  • Where: a stage near the Market Cross. Festivities build through the afternoon in the city centre.
  • Who presses the switch: two “local heroes” chosen by public nomination, one aged under 18 and one 18 or over.
  • Afterwards: the Light Up Chichester After Party at participating venues across the city centre.

In 2025 the countdown was outside the Assembly Rooms on North Street; this year the stage is at the Market Cross.

The afternoon programme

From the BID’s programme announcement of 20 October. Everything is at the Market Cross and free.

Time Who
3pm Host Dawn Gracie opens the afternoon
3.15pm Dance and Beyond’s Mini Movers
3.30pm Steel pan
4pm Arabesque School of Performing Arts
4.15pm Rock Choir
4.30pm Prebendal School Choir
4.45pm Dawn Gracie leads the countdown
5pm The local heroes switch the lights on

The switch-on also launches Tinker Bell’s Never Land Christmas Treasure Hunt, with clues in participating shop windows. Unlike 2025, the BID’s announcement and its events listing for the day mention no food and drink market on East Street.

The after party, from 5pm

The BID’s after-party listing runs from 5pm to 11.30pm and names these venues:

  • The Ghost at the Feast: Christmas music, mulled wine and festive food, 5pm to midnight, families welcome
  • Duke and Rye: festive fun from 3pm, a children’s craft workshop 3pm to 5pm, kitchen open 12pm to 8pm, DJ from 5pm
  • Trents: hot chocolate, live music from 8.30pm
  • The Fountain: live band from 9pm
  • Room 12: “Through the Decades”, 9pm to 3am
  • The Hole in the Wall: DJ from 7pm
  • The Chichester Inn: from 5pm, Christmas songs, mulled wine, mince pies and home-cooked food
  • The Escapist: mulled wine, mince pies and live music
  • The Foundry, The Old Cross and The George and Dragon: mulled wine and festive drinks
  • Havana: Beaujolais Nouveau night
  • Costa Coffee: open until 7pm

Nominate a local hero by 30 October

Anyone can nominate someone who volunteers, supports others or goes beyond their job, through the BID’s Light Up Chichester page. There are separate forms for the under-18 and 18-and-over categories.

  • Nominations close at midnight on Friday 30 October 2026.
  • Nominees must be free between 4.30pm and 5.30pm on Saturday 21 November.
  • Winners are told at least two weeks before the event.
  • The judges are Natasha McLeod, chief executive of Chichester BID; the Mayor of Chichester, Councillor Sean McHale; Nicola Brown of the law firm Mayo Wynne Baxter, which supports the scheme; and Mark Waldron, editor in chief of Sussex World.

The day after the BID ballot count

Chichester BID is running its renewal ballot this autumn. Ballot papers go out on 20 October, completed papers must reach the ballot holder by 5pm on 19 November, and the count is on 20 November, with the result declared by Chichester District Council. So the BID will run the switch-on the day after finding out whether it has a fourth term.

That ballot decides the BID’s fourth term, 2027 to 2032. It does not affect the 2026 event either way, because the current term runs into 2027.

What the event looked like in 2025

Chichester BID’s own listing for Light Up Chichester sets out the 2025 shape, which is the best guide to the afternoon until the BID publishes this year’s programme.

Element 2025 detail
Date Saturday 22 November 2025
Whole event 10am to 6pm
Where East Street, North Street and The Cross
Food and drink market East Street, 10am to 6pm, more than a dozen local traders
Live music and dance North Street, 12pm to 5.30pm
Countdown 4.59pm, outside the Assembly Rooms on North Street
Lights on 5pm
After party From 6pm, bars and restaurants across the city

The countdown was fronted by elves from Chichester Festival Theatre alongside “local heroes” chosen by nomination. There were snow flutter effects and projections on the Assembly Rooms, and performances from Big Noise, Arabesque Dance School, the RG Steel Pan Band, Dance and Beyond, Rock Choir, Stagecoach and The Prebendal School Choir.

It is free to attend.

The weather has form here

This is the practical warning worth carrying into November. Chichester’s outdoor festive events have been called off in each of the last two years, and both times the reason was wind.

  • In 2024, the pop-up food event that was meant to run alongside the switch-on on East Street was cancelled on 20 November, three days before the event, because of forecast high winds and heavy rain.
  • In 2025, the Chichester Festive Market was cancelled for Saturday 6 December because gusts were expected to make the gazebos unstable. The council announced it the day before and let the Sunday market go ahead.

It happened again this autumn: the city centre’s Antiques, Vintage and Decorative Arts Street Market, due on East Street on Sunday 25 October 2026, was cancelled two days before because strong gusty winds were forecast.

The lights themselves are on a building and go on regardless. The market stalls and the staging are the part that goes.

What follows the switch-on

Chichester District Council runs a separate festive programme once the lights are up, based at The Guildhall in Priory Park. In 2025 that ran from 28 November and included storytelling for pre-schoolers, silent discos, concerts, a DJ set for teenagers, a children’s magic show and a commissioned pantomime. The council said the nine-day programme drew about 1,400 people and largely sold out.

For 2026 the Priory Park events are now on sale through The Novium’s shop: The Priory Park Pantomime Experience on six dates from 12 to 22 December (£11 an adult, £8 a child), storytelling for under-fives on 8, 9, 16 and 17 December, an adult silent disco on 17 December, and Sounds of Home, a free live music trail from The Novium on 27 and 28 November, 4pm to 6pm. Our Christmas shows page has the panto times.

The council confirmed the full programme on 2 November. The Novium’s box office also lists a Festive Sound Bath on 9 December (£20), Deck the Guildhall on 12 December (£15, with a glass of wine and a mince pie), the Festive Jazz Café with Mike Carey’s Big House Jazz Band on 16 December (£15, under-16s £7.50) and the over-18s silent disco on 17 December (£7.50). Storytelling is £4 a child.

The Chichester Festive Market returns to North Street and East Street on Friday 4 to Sunday 6 and Friday 11 to Sunday 13 December 2026, according to the BID’s markets round-up. Our Christmas markets page has the detail.

Last year there was also an interactive lights installation at Chichester Cathedral’s Bell Tower; nothing has been announced for it in 2026.

Starlight Trail the same afternoon

Before the switch-on, The Novium Museum, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester Library and Chichester Cathedral run the Starlight Trail on Saturday 21 November, 1.30pm to 4.30pm: festive crafts at each venue, with children making a star lantern to light their route. You choose a starting venue when you book. Tickets are £12 a child, booked in advance (Novium page). This year the library’s activities are at The Novium. The trail ends half an hour before the lights go on.

The switch-on also launches Tinker Bell’s Christmas Treasure Hunt, a free trail of clues in six shop windows that runs to 24 December, with a prize draw closing at noon on Christmas Eve (BID).

Parking on the day

Parking at the Avenue de Chartres multi-storey is free from 4pm on Saturday 21 November, Chichester District Council’s offer for the switch-on, published by the BID on 29 October (Christmas parking post). It is a long-stay car park of 890 spaces on the south side of the city centre, the second biggest after Northgate.

The same post lists a third hour free when you buy two hours through MiPermit at Avenue de Chartres on 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13 December, the market days. Our parking page has the standard tariffs, and the roadworks and travel page covers city centre closures. For the pantomime and Christmas shows, see our Chichester Christmas shows page.

Still to be confirmed

  • The two local heroes. Nominations closed on 30 October; winners are told at least two weeks before.
  • Any road closures around the Market Cross. None published so far.
  • Festive market opening hours.

This page will be updated as each is published.

Sources