Six firework teams compete at Victoria Park on 26 and 27 September. General admission is £14.56, the seated area £28, and both nights still had tickets.
The British Musical Fireworks Championship returns to Victoria Park on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September 2026. Gates open at 5.30pm both nights, the site closes at 9.30pm, and six pyrotechnic companies fire three competition displays a night, each set to music. Sefton Council runs it and has done, in its own words, “for well over 20 years”. (Visit Southport, Sefton Council)
The line most often repeated about this event is that the seated area sells out months ahead. Checked on 3 September 2026, that is not where it stands: every ticket type, including the £28 seated ticket, was still on sale for both nights.
Tickets: what you actually pay
Prices below are from the See Tickets booking page, read on 3 September 2026. See Tickets shows two figures for each type. The larger one is what leaves your account; the smaller one in brackets is the face value before the booking fee.
| Ticket | You pay | Face value |
|---|---|---|
| General admission, 5 and over | £14.56 | £13.00 |
| Group rate, 10 or more, 5 and over | £13.44 each | £12.00 |
| Seated area, 5 and over | £28.00 | £25.00 |
| General admission, under 5 | Free | Free |
Three details in that table are easy to get wrong:
- There is a £1.25 order processing fee, and See Tickets is explicit that it applies per order, not per ticket. Six tickets in one basket still costs £1.25.
- An under-5 in general admission needs a free ticket, and it is only valid alongside an adult general admission ticket. An under-5 in the seated area needs no ticket at all, but will not be given a seat.
- The group rate is not a small saving on a big party. Ten general admission tickets cost £145.60; ten group tickets cost £134.40, a difference of £11.20.
Carers go free. A carer is admitted free alongside a full-paying customer, general admission only, not the seated area. There are no pre-issued carer tickets: one is handed out at the entrance on production of a Carers Allowance, Attendance Allowance or Disability Living Allowance letter, a PIP letter or an Access Card.
Can you buy on the night? Yes, though the organiser never says so directly. It is buried in the carers policy, which states twice that without supporting documentation a carer “will need to purchase a ticket on the gate”. That only works if there is a gate sale. Sefton Council’s own advice has always been to buy in advance because tickets sell out, so treat the gate as a fallback and not a plan.
Who is competing, and on which night
| Saturday 26 September | Sunday 27 September |
|---|---|
| Skyburst | Celestial Displays |
| Monumental Fireworks | Flashpoint Fireworks |
| Sonic Fireworks | Fire Monkey Pyro |
One correction worth making, because it is circulating. At least one local report has Star Fireworks competing on the Sunday. The organiser’s own listing names Flashpoint Fireworks in that slot. Where the two disagree, the event’s own page is the one to trust.
Each company fires roughly a quarter of an hour, three companies a night, inside the 5.30pm to 9.30pm window. There is no published running order for the individual displays.
Getting there, parking and the walk
The official event car park is Princes Park, and it costs £7 a car. That price is on the event’s own listing, in the parking note attached to it, not in the FAQ text most people read. The same listing gives two different opening times for the same car park: the FAQ says it opens at 4.00pm, the parking note says 16:30. Allow for the later of the two. Any £10 figure you see quoted is the Air Show rate, a different event in a different month, and it does not carry over.
Accessible parking is at Splash World, not Princes Park. Spaces go first come, first served on production of a blue badge, and the organiser says they are charged “at the normal car parking rate”. That car park is Sefton’s Dunes Leisure and Splashworld site on The Esplanade, PR8 1RR, where the published tariff is 90p for an hour, £1.70 for two and £5.50 all day. Our parking in Southport page has the full set of tariffs, including the £6.00 Esplanade trap 120 metres away.
By train, this is the easy weekend. Southport and Birkdale stations are both about a fifteen minute walk from the park. Merseyrail’s four-week Northern Line tunnel closure does not start until Sunday 11 October, so services on 26 and 27 September are unaffected. (Merseyrail) Routes and journey times are on our Southport train times page.
No road closures have been advertised. A search of the Public Notice Portal for PR8 and PR9 traffic notices returns nothing from Sefton at all, only Lancashire County Council orders on the West Lancashire fringe, and Sefton’s own streetworks page is a map with no readable list. If a closure is put in for the weekend it has not been published anywhere findable. Our roadworks and travel page tracks what is confirmed on the roads.
On the site
- Bring a chair. The organiser’s own site notes say seating is provided in the ticketed seated area only, and that you are welcome to bring your own chairs. Nothing in the FAQ says this, and it is the single most useful line in the listing if you have bought general admission.
- Entry from 5pm for visitors with additional needs, half an hour before the main gates. Tell a gate steward on arrival.
- A fenced accessible viewing area with its own accessible toilets, plus a Changing Places toilet in Victoria Park and a Mobiloo unit next to the accessible viewing area, fitted with a hoist and a changing bench.
- The event is on grass, but the catering units and toilets are placed so they can be reached on hard standing.
- Children’s inflatables, attractions, street food, bars and hot drinks, glitter and face painting.
- You can bring your own food. BBQs and open fires are not allowed.
- Dogs are allowed but the organiser advises against bringing them, because of the noise, and any dog must stay on a lead.
- Drones are banned inside the event site.
- Random searches of people and vehicles are a condition of entry. The published list of items being searched for covers hazardous items, illegal substances, explosives, ammunition, fireworks, knives and blades, firearms, laser devices, smoke canisters and transmitting devices.
What happened in 2025, and the one thing still unconfirmed
The 2025 event was a Champion of Champions edition, fired by former winners. Optimum Fireworks took the title, Bright Sparks Fireworks were second and Dragon Fireworks third. It also carried Southport’s first drone light show, flown by DroneSwarm. Sefton’s own account of the weekend puts the scale of it at more than 10 tonnes of fireworks, two tonnes of explosive material, 15 technicians and over five kilometres of wiring. (Sefton Council, 1 October 2025)
A drone show has not been confirmed for 2026. It appears nowhere in the organiser’s 2026 listing and nowhere on Sefton’s own channels. At least one commercial visitor guide is already publishing a 7.45pm drone slot for this year; that time appears in no first-party source. Treat it as unconfirmed until Sefton says otherwise.
Things worth knowing about how it works
Visit Southport’s own account of the event, written by the marketing manager who has worked on it for sixteen years, fills in what the listing leaves out (Visit Southport):
- The championship has had three homes. It started in King’s Gardens, spent a single year on the beach, went back to King’s Gardens, and settled in Victoria Park.
- Each company submits its track list in confidence at the start of the year. No duplicate songs between teams, a ten-song limit, family friendly only, and the judges hear the music for the first time on the night, so nobody can mark a routine in advance.
- Building the site takes two days and clearing it takes one, using 600 metres of barriers and a mile of fencing.
- The biggest shells reach 500 metres.
Is there a bonfire night display in Southport?
Not one run by the council, and not in Victoria Park. Southport’s big fireworks event is this one, in September. Sefton Council puts on nothing for 5 November, which in 2026 falls on a Thursday.
The recurring 5 November fixture in the town is the Southport RFC Fireworks Extravaganza, at the club on Waterloo Road, Hillside, PR8 4QW. It ran on Friday 1 November 2024 and Friday 31 October 2025, both times with gates at 6pm and the display at around 8pm. The 2025 prices were £10 adult, £9 for ages 13 to 16, £7 for ages 3 to 12, free under 3 and £30 for a family of two adults and two under-16s, with only limited tickets on the gate. (Southport RFC)
The 2026 date is not out. The club announced its 2025 event on 28 September, so an announcement in the last week of September is the pattern to watch. This page will be updated when it lands.
What it means for you
If you want a seat, book now rather than assume it has gone. The seated area was still selling on 3 September at £28. That is twice the general admission price, and the only thing it buys is a seat, so the question is whether standing for four hours in late September is worth £13.44 to you.
If there are ten of you, use the group rate. It is £11.20 off a party of ten and it is sold as an ordinary ticket type, not something you have to ask for.
If you are driving, arrive for the 4pm car park opening, not the 5.30pm gates. If someone in the party has a blue badge, go to Splash World instead and expect to pay the normal £5.50 all-day tariff.
If you are looking for a 5 November display, it will not be a council one. Watch Southport RFC in the last week of September.
Have your say
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