Fireworks Night at the Hove county ground is Saturday 7 November, gates 5pm, display about 7pm, standing from £10 until 8 October. Preston Park is not listed.

Bonfire night 2026 falls on Thursday 5 November. The one confirmed display inside the city is Fireworks Night at the Hove county ground on Saturday 7 November: gates 5pm, fireworks about 7pm, advance tickets only. The city’s biggest free display is still not on the council’s list for this year.

Updated 29 September: Sussex Cricket has published Fireworks Night 2026, Saturday 7 November, with prices; the council’s outdoor events page still shows no Preston Park display.

Preston Park has held the Coles funfair and fireworks for years. It is in the council’s 2025 outdoor events programme in black and white. It is not in the 2026 one.

The Preston Park findings below were first checked on 4 September 2026 and re-checked on 29 September against the council’s own published programme and the organisers’ own sites. Where a display has not announced this year, this page says so rather than filling the gap with last year’s date.

What the council’s own 2026 programme says

Brighton & Hove City Council publishes a list of every event booked onto its open spaces. The 2026 programme, signed off in January, runs to the end of the year and its last three entries are these:

Event Date Where Capacity
RM Sotheby’s London to Brighton Veteran Car Run Sunday 1 November Madeira Drive and Black Rock 1,200 participants
Brighton 10k Sunday 16 November (or 9 November) Hove Lawns and Madeira Drive not stated
Burning the Clocks Monday 21 December Madeira Drive 12,000

There is no fireworks event anywhere in October or November. The last Coles funfair of the 2026 season is booked for The Level, 10 to 20 September, and after that the company does not appear again all year.

Compare the 2025 programme, which carries a row reading “Coles Funfair and Fireworks, Fri 31st Oct to Sat 1st Nov, Preston Park, Open Access, Fairground Rides and Fireworks”. The 2026 document has no equivalent line.

Two other checks point the same way. The council’s live outdoor events page lists nothing between the Rise 8k on 18 October and the veteran car run on 1 November. And the Friends of Preston Park, who minute what is coming to the park, listed the Coles funfair and kite festival for 4 and 5 July this year and nothing for the autumn.

The caveat, stated plainly. The programme is a snapshot taken in January and events do get added to it during the year. The council calls the web version “a brief overview”. So this is not a cancellation announcement, and nobody has published one. It is the absence of a booking in the two places a booking would normally show, five weeks before the date. If it reappears, this page will be updated.

Hove county ground: Saturday 7 November

Sussex Cricket has announced Fireworks Night 2026 at the 1st Central County Ground, Eaton Road, Hove BN3 3AN, run with its Sixes social cricket bar. This is what the club has published:

  • Date: Saturday 7 November 2026, not bonfire night itself.
  • Gates: 5pm. The club advises arriving as early as you can.
  • Pre-show: from 5.15pm, with the Elton John tribute act Doing Elton and the Dua Lipa tribute act Levitate.
  • Fireworks: “around 7pm”. That is half an hour earlier than the 7.30pm display of recent years.
  • Goody bags for the first 200 under-16s through the gates.

Prices while the early bird runs, which ends on 8 October:

Ticket Adult Under 16
Standing £10.00 £7.50
Wheelchair accessible areas £10.00 £7.50
Reserved seat, Cow Corner Sharks Stand £17.50 £12.50
Reserved seat, Spen Cama Pavilion £30.00 £17.50

Under-3s go free but still need a ticket. Premium seats in the Dean Wilson hospitality suites are listed as “on sale soon”. For comparison, standing was £15 for an adult in 2025, so the early bird price is lower this year. The club does not publish what the price becomes after 8 October.

There are no tickets on the gate. The club says its ticket office will be closed on the night, and in 2025 the event sold out. Book through the club’s ticketing site. The FAQ allows snacks and water in an A4-sized bag, but no alcohol, hot food or picnics, and a small umbrella that must be down during the display. Tickets carry an optional donation to the Sussex Cricket Foundation.

The track record, from the club’s own pages: 2025 was Saturday 1 November with a 7.30pm display and sold out; 2023 was Saturday 4 November with capacity for 9,000; 2019 was 5 November itself, when more than 7,000 people came. The ground is a five-minute walk from Hove station.

Lewes is eight miles away and asks you not to come

Every year a large number of Brighton people decide to go to Lewes bonfire on 5 November. Lewes District Council and the emergency services publish the same request each year: if you are not a Lewes resident, go to a display closer to home. It is not a ticketed event and it is not managed for visitor numbers.

If you go anyway, the trains are the part that catches people out. In recent years no trains have called at Lewes, Glynde or Southease after 5pm, and none at Falmer after about 6.40pm, with nothing stopping again until the next morning. Lewes town centre roads close in the afternoon. Check the council’s Lewes bonfire travel page for this year’s exact times before you plan anything around it, because the cut-offs move.

What to do if you just want to see something on the night

  • Book the county ground before 8 October if you want the early bird price. It is the only confirmed display of scale inside the city.
  • Check for a late Preston Park booking. The council’s outdoor events page is where it would appear first.
  • Look at the villages. Sussex bonfire societies run processions and displays across the county through October and early November, most of them on Saturdays, most of them free to watch and funded by collection.
  • Do not drive to a display. Nothing near the seafront or Preston Park has parking laid on for an event, and the residents’ zones stay in force. Our Brighton parking guide has the tariffs and the zone map.

Before you set off

Roads change fast around any November event. The council seals temporary orders in batches and they only appear on the register once signed, so a closure can be real and unpublished at the same time. Check the Brighton roadworks and travel page on the day, and note that the Western Road reconstruction between Holland Road and Montpelier Road is due to run through the autumn.

Still to be confirmed: the price of county ground tickets after the early bird ends on 8 October, and the hospitality suite release. Any Preston Park booking would show on the council’s events page first; on 29 September there was none. This page will be updated in the week of the display.