Free on Sat 14 November, 11am to 4pm at Lord Street Bandstand: Toy Story, Miss Rachel and K-Pop shows, Paddington and Buzz Lightyear, a carousel and carols.

Southport’s Christmas season launches on Saturday 14 November 2026. Southport BID’s Christmas Spectacular runs from 11am to 4pm, is free, and moves to the Lord Street Bandstand and the street outside The Vincent Hotel, not Town Hall Gardens. (Southport BID feature, 24 September 2026)

Updated 28 October: the BID has published the stage line-up. Kelly Bond and Baz Todd host, with Toy Story, Popstars, Miss Rachel, K-Pop vs Saja and Superhero shows, carols from Connected Voices and Southport Rock Choir, and a carousel. A timed schedule is still to come.

Updated 20 October: the BID’s lights page now confirms the 60ft tree stands in Town Hall Gardens again this year, and adds a new Christmas Tree Pixel Challenge on the tree from 14 November. The Bear moves to the Northern Quarter of Lord Street. The full Spectacular line-up has still not been published.

The quick answer

  • Southport Christmas Spectacular: Saturday 14 November 2026, 11am to 4pm, free, Lord Street Bandstand and outside The Vincent Hotel.
  • Who is on: hosts Kelly Bond and Baz Todd; Toy Story, Miss Rachel, Popstars, K-Pop vs Saja and Superhero shows; Paddington and Buzz Lightyear; carols and Marshside Brass Band.
  • The Grand’s own switch-on: Saturday 7 November, 7pm, a ticketed evening with a meal.
  • The lights run 15 November to 5 January, according to Your Southport.
  • The 60ft tree is in Town Hall Gardens, with a new Pixel Challenge game from 14 November.

What is on at the 2026 Spectacular

Southport BID’s own event page now gives the line-up (Your Southport, Christmas Spectacular). The stage at the Lord Street Bandstand is hosted by Kelly Bond and Baz Todd and runs between 11am and 4pm:

  • Character shows: K-Pop vs Saja, Toy Story Show, Popstars Show, Miss Rachel and a Superhero Show
  • Festive performances from Southport dance schools, and a special appearance from Unite Martial Arts
  • Christmas carols from Connected Voices and Southport Rock Choir
  • Music from Marshside Brass Band

The BID says the full running order and schedule are “to be revealed”, so there are no slot times for individual acts yet.

Off the stage:

  • Paddington and Buzz Lightyear in the character zones, for photographs “at intervals throughout the day”.
  • A giant snow globe to pose in, a carousel, a postbox to drop off a letter to Santa, face painting and Christmas craft stalls, outside The Vincent Hotel.
  • Inside The Vincent, a Paddington-themed children’s yoga and mindfulness session. This is the one part that needs booking; the BID page does not yet say how.

Everything else is free and open to all. The first announcement, published by the BID’s media agency Stand Up For Southport on 24 September, had flagged most of this (Stand Up For Southport).

Also new: a Grinch trail

Your Southport has a page for The Grinch Christmas Quest, a town-centre trail of seven “Grinch sightings” with clues and phone-based AR stops that build a Grinch Tracker. No app is needed. It has no start date or map yet: “More information coming soon” (Your Southport, Christmas trail).

The one confirmed date: The Grand, Saturday 7 November

The Grand on Lord Street has its own Christmas light switch-on, and for 2026 it is Saturday 7 November, from 7pm, headlined by a Rat Pack tribute act billed as The Wack Pack. (The Grand)

Two changes worth knowing if you went last year. In 2025 The Grand’s switch-on was free, outdoors and from 4pm, running on the same day as the BID’s town event and billed as somewhere to go afterwards. The 2026 version is a ticketed evening with a one-course seasonal meal, starting at 7pm, and it is on a different Saturday from anything the BID has announced. The venue also warns that tables of fewer than ten may be asked to share, and that tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.

When the town’s own Christmas launch has happened, year by year

Year Event Date Where Announced
2022 Festive Fun Day Sat 19 November Town centre 21 October
2023 Festive Fun Day Sat 18 November, 1pm to 5pm Lord Street Bandstand 27 October
2024 Festive Fun Day Sat 23 November Lord Street 23 October
2025 Southport Christmas Spectacular Sat 15 November, 11am to 4pm Town Hall Gardens 15 October
2026 Southport Christmas Spectacular Sat 14 November, 11am to 4pm Lord Street Bandstand 24 September

The 2022 to 2025 rows come from Southport BID’s own news archive; the 2026 row from the BID’s feature of 24 September.

The 2026 date came three weeks earlier than any of the previous four, and it is the earliest Saturday yet.

There has not been a traditional switch-on since 2019

If you are searching for a stage on Lord Street, a countdown and a celebrity pulling a lever, that format ended. The last one Southport BID promoted was in 2019, when Peter Andre headlined. The BID’s position, reported at the time it dropped the event, was that it had to make sure “the investment of our local business community is used in the most effective way” and that it was “focusing our resources on a month-long Christmas programme which will attract local residents and visitors to come to Southport on multiple occasions and also to stay for longer”.

What replaced it is a daytime family event: the Festive Fun Day for three years, then the rebranded Christmas Spectacular in 2025, which put Peppa Pig, Bluey and Bingo, a K-Pop Demons show and local dance schools on a stage in Town Hall Gardens between 11am and 4pm, with a character zone, a giant snow globe and face painting, and finished with the first of the new musical shows on the LED tree. (Southport BID, 15 October 2025)

Why it has moved off Town Hall Gardens

The 2025 event was built around Town Hall Gardens. Those gardens are now the site of a £10m regeneration into a permanent open-air events space, funded by £5m from central government and £2.5m each from Sefton Council and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. The project was initiated by the families of Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King.

Preparation work started in the gardens in January 2026, when the council removed the temporary planters and permanently relocated the perimeter benches, and it said at the time that this “precedes the long-term redevelopment of the Town Hall Gardens as a multi-use family friendly events space”. (Sefton Council, 27 January 2026) Site works were aimed at starting during 2026 with completion in 2027.

That answers the question for this year: the 2026 Spectacular moves off the gardens to the Lord Street Bandstand and the pavement outside The Vincent. The tree itself stays put: the BID’s lights page says the 60ft tree “stands tall in Town Hall Gardens outside The Atkinson” for 2026 (Your Southport).

The lights themselves, which do not depend on an event

Southport’s festive lighting is funded by BID businesses and goes up regardless of what happens on the stage. Your Southport gives the display period as 15 November to 5 January. What is in it:

  • The 60ft LED Christmas tree in Town Hall Gardens outside The Atkinson, lit by 20,000 colour LED pixels. It was re-lamped for 2025 with more than two kilometres of new lighting by local firm Moonlight Events.
  • The Bear and The Reindeer, the two giant illuminated characters that first appeared in 2023. For 2026 the BID puts The Bear on Lord Street in the Northern Quarter, having stood by the Lord Street Bandstand before, and The Reindeer outside Sainsbury’s.
  • The Boulevard of Light, a mile of tree lights along Lord Street, and the Canopy of Light over Scarisbrick Avenue. Both of those are lit year-round, not just at Christmas.
  • 87 lamppost motifs, nine overhead welcome signs, and stars and sail lights on the roundabouts at each end of Lord Street.
  • Around 200,000 additional festive lights in total.

One inconsistency in the BID’s own material, in case you are counting: its Christmas page says there are “five further illuminated trees across the town centre”, while its 2025 initiatives post and its lights page both say eight.

New for 2026: the Christmas Tree Pixel Challenge

The BID has added a game to the tree. From 14 November, visitors to Town Hall Gardens can press a button to start a quick quiz, spotting snowflakes and counting reindeer as the tree plays its animations. The BID says it is for all ages and that more information is “coming soon” (Your Southport).

Musical Light Shows premiered on the tree in 2025: four shows, five minutes each, playing at 20 minute intervals on selected dates through to New Year’s Eve. The BID’s 2026 lights page still invites visitors to “dance to dazzling Musical Light Shows”, but gives no dates or times for them this year.

What else is already on the 2026 festive calendar

  • Two pantomimes. Cinderella at The Atkinson, 4 to 31 December, with every date and price already published, and Dick Whittington at the Little Theatre from 18 December to 3 January.
  • Santa’s Grotto at Wayfarers Arcade and a run of party nights at The Grand and The Bold through late November and December, listed on Visit Southport’s Christmas page.

Southport also had a second light event this year that was nothing to do with Christmas: Lightport, a free walk-through light art trail along a 400 metre stretch of Lord Street, ran 14 to 16 February 2026 from 5pm to 9pm and used Town Hall Gardens as its centrepiece. It has not been announced for a second year.

Getting into town for it

Whatever date lands, the town centre fills. Our Southport parking page has every Sefton tariff including the free bays, and roadworks and travel covers anything closed on the approach. We will add the stage running order when the BID publishes it. For the market, see Southport’s Christmas market.