Kensington bonfire night: no display, Battersea 7-8 Nov

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. The nearest big display is Battersea Park on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November.

Updated 3 October: Battersea Park has published its 2026 dates, timings, prices and line-up, and its information page is now this year’s.

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 Treat that page as out of date.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

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 2026 dates are now on the organiser’s own site: Saturday 7 November and Sunday 8 November (Battersea Park Fireworks). The two nights are completely different shows with different soundtracks, not a repeat, and the display is designed by Titanium Pyrotechnics, the company behind the Mayor of London’s New Year’s Eve fireworks.

The rest of the line-up, from the organiser’s home page: on Saturday, Fiesta Latina band Conjunto Sabroso before the fireworks and a Disco Ceilidh afterwards; on Sunday, the Taylor Swift tribute Fearlessly Taylor before and a Pop Anthems Afterparty with DJ Josh Lovatt after. The earlier Sunday timings make it the one to pick with young children.

Battersea fireworks tickets and prices

These are the ticket tiers the organiser lists for 2026:

That is the list exactly as published, including the Late Release tier priced below general admission. The site does not say which tier is on sale now; the booking links run through a Kaboodle queue page that shows nothing until you are in it. Last year’s general admission started at £14.20, so the top tier is up about £3.

The rules that catch people out:

• Tickets are advance only. There are no gate sales, and they are non-refundable and non-transferable.
• There is no resale and no waiting list for sold-out nights. Kaboodle is the only official seller, and the organisers warn that tickets bought elsewhere may be fake.
• There is no re-admission once you leave.
• Every under-18 must be with an adult, with no more than four under-18s per adult, and adults may be asked for ID.
• No food, glass, alcohol or sparklers can be brought in, and there are bag checks. Food and bars on site are card only.
• New this year, in the terms: no full face masks, no realistic replica weapons and no bulky costumes. That matters on the weekend after Halloween.
• No dogs, except registered assistance dogs with an Assistance Dogs (UK) ID book.

Getting there from Kensington and Chelsea

There is no parking in the park apart from very limited disabled spaces. The organisers list the rail stations as Battersea Park, Queenstown Road, Victoria and Clapham Junction, the nearest tube stations as Battersea Power Station (Northern line) and Victoria, and the buses as the 19, 170, 319 and 345.

There is a cycle park at Albert Gate only, which is also the gate the organisers recommend as quieter than Sun Gate on both nights. Hired bikes cannot be taken into the park. 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

If any display is announced inside the borough, it will go here. We will also note if either Battersea night sells out.