Kensington bonfire night: no display, Battersea is nearest

Guy Fawkes Night falls on Thursday 5 November 2026, and the short answer for this borough is that there is no Kensington and Chelsea fireworks display. The council does not run one, and its own events calendar does not list one.

We checked that rather than assumed it. Filtering the council’s events calendar to November 2026 returns yoga, tai chi, library rhyme time, wellbeing walks and swimming sessions, page after page of them, and no bonfire or fireworks event. Filtering by the council’s own “Christmas and winter events” category returns “There are no matching results for your search.”

The display that is still listed online, and has not run for years

Search for fireworks in this borough and you will land on inkensington.co.uk, which states that “The Westway Development Trust hold an annual fireworks display in Maxilla Gardens, W10 6NQ, which offers free admission for the public.” Treat that page as out of date. Three things give it away:

• The trust dropped “Development” from its name years ago and is now Westway Trust. Its current What’s On page carries no fireworks event.
• The trust’s own Maxilla Gardens page describes a garden refurbished in 2024 with winding planting and bespoke furniture, and lists what the space is suitable for. Fireworks are not on that list.
• The same listing also recommends “ice skating at the Natural History Museum”, a rink that closed for good after the 2021-22 season.

If a garden square near you runs something, it will be advertised on the garden gates and it will be for keyholders. There is no borough-wide public display to turn up to.

Battersea Park: the nearest big one, and the date to diary

The closest large display to Chelsea and South Kensington is Battersea Park Fireworks, run by the charity Enable in partnership with Wandsworth Council. It is a walk over Chelsea Bridge from the King’s Road end of Chelsea.

The date that matters right now is Tuesday 8 September. Tickets for 2026 go on sale that day: presale access from 9.00am for people on the mailing list, general sale from midday (Battersea Park Fireworks). The event’s own home page confirms the same on-sale date.

The 2026 event dates have not been published on the official site. As of 3 September the home page says only that the display “is back”. Expect them confirmed with the ticket release on 8 September.

The dates being reported elsewhere are Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November, with the Saturday the standard night and the Sunday the family one (Time Out). That fits the pattern, the first weekend after the 5th, and it matches the Saturday and Sunday shape the organisers have used for years. It is not on the organiser’s own site, so do not book travel or accommodation on it until the tickets go live.

Do not book off the event’s own information page

This is the trap. The information page on the official site is still last year’s. It opens “TICKETS ARE NOW SOLD OUT”, gives timings for “SATURDAY 1ST NOVEMBER” and “SUNDAY 2ND NOVEMBER”, and prints a residents’ helpline rota running from Monday 27 October. Those are 2025 dates. The signup page on the same site says tickets go on sale next week. Both cannot be true.

What that stale page is still useful for is the shape of the event, which has been stable:

The two nights are different shows with different soundtracks, not a repeat. Last year’s prices were £14.20 plus booking fee for general admission (16+), rising to £15.00 on final release, £9.50 for a youth ticket (5-15), and free for under-5s, who still need a ticket. Wandsworth also runs an Access For All scheme putting 5,000 discounted tickets in front of eligible Wandsworth residents on means-tested benefits, which does not help Kensington and Chelsea households.

Two rules worth knowing before you buy: tickets cannot be bought at the gate, and there is no re-admission. Kaboodle is the official ticketing partner, and the organisers warn against buying anywhere else.

Getting there is easier without a car. There is no public parking in the park during the event, and the nearest stations are Battersea Park and Queenstown Road, with Battersea Power Station on the Northern line. If you are driving anywhere near it, read our page on parking in Kensington and Chelsea and check roadworks and travel first.

Setting off your own: what the law actually says

If there is no display, plenty of people buy their own. The rules are national and they are enforced here:

• You cannot set off fireworks between 11pm and 7am, except on Bonfire Night when the cut-off is midnight, and on New Year’s Eve, Diwali and Chinese New Year when it is 1am (gov.uk).
• It is illegal to set off or throw fireworks, including sparklers, in the street or any other public place.
• You cannot buy adult fireworks under 18, and the penalty for illegal sale or use runs to an unlimited fine and up to six months in prison, with a £90 on-the-spot fine available.

Shops can sell fireworks without a separate licence only in set windows, and the autumn one is 15 October to 10 November, confirmed on the council’s explosives and fireworks licences page. Outside those windows a shop needs a licence from the council, and storing fireworks may need one under the Explosives Regulations 2014.

What we will update

We will add the confirmed Battersea Park dates and prices as soon as the organisers publish them, which should be on or before 8 September. If any display is announced inside the borough, it will go here too.