Dartford Christmas Switch On 2026: Sat 14 November, Free

Dartford’s Big Christmas Switch On is on Saturday 14 November 2026, in Brewery Square off Market Street, from 11am to 6.30pm. It is free, with no ticket and no booking. That comes from Dartford Borough Council’s own events listing, which had the date, the venue and the hours up on 3 September. (Dartford Borough Council)

What the council has not published is the line-up. Its event page says only that “special guests and activties will be shared closer to the time”. So if you are searching for who is switching the lights on this year, the honest answer today is that nobody outside the council and its contractor knows. Below is the date evidence, when the acts are contractually due, and the rest of Dartford’s festive calendar as it stands.

The date, and why it is not a guess

The council fixes this event by a rule, not by picking a weekend. Its own procurement notice states it plainly: “The Christmas Switch-on is a free family event which takes place the first Saturday following Remembrance Sunday in November of each year. Dartford has hosted the event for over 20 years.” (Find a Tender, notice 2025/S 000-036427)

Remembrance Sunday 2026 falls on 8 November, which the council confirms on its own Remembrance service page. The first Saturday after that is 14 November. The rule and the listing agree.

The 2024 and 2025 rows are the rule applied to those years, not council listings, so treat them as background rather than as a record of what happened.

When the acts are due to be named

The council put the event out to tender in July 2025 and awarded it in August 2025 to Celebtime Limited of 61 London Road, Maidstone, for £175,000 excluding VAT (£210,000 including VAT). The contract covers both the switch-on and the Big Day Out in July. (Find a Tender, award notice 2025/S 000-050152)

The interesting part for anyone waiting on a line-up is the contract’s key performance indicators, which are published in full. The contractor has to:

• “Submit name of available Host & Acts by event date minus 8 weeks”
• “Issue Stage Itinerary /Programme etc by event date minus 6 weeks”
• “Provide relevant marketing material/Bios for Host & Acts by event date minus 6 weeks”

Counted back from Saturday 14 November, that is 19 September 2026 for the names and 3 October 2026 for the running order and the publicity material. Those are deadlines for the contractor to deliver to the council, not promises of a public announcement, but they mark the earliest point at which the council could publish a line-up with any confidence. Nothing in the contract obliges it to publish on either date.

One caveat worth knowing. The signed contract runs from 21 August 2025 to 20 August 2026, with an optional extension to 31 July 2028 “based on performance of the contract”. The November 2026 event therefore sits inside the extension period rather than the initial term. The council has already listed the event, so this is a procedural point rather than a doubt about whether it is happening.

What the day usually looks like

The council does not publish a running order this far out, but the tender spells out the physical set-up. Lot 1 buys a stage 6.1m wide by 4.88m deep with a roof frame and front of stage barriers “for use on hard standing, including 2m gate for disabled access”, plus PA, stage lighting, a generator and stage management. The stage “must be delivered, built, derigged and taken from site the same day”, with site access from 6.30am.

That tells you two useful things. It is a compact stage in a hard-surfaced square, so this is a town-centre event rather than a park one. And the whole rig goes up and comes down on the Saturday, so there is no multi-day build to work around.

The most recent year gives the clearest picture. On Saturday 15 November 2025 the lights were switched on by Maya, aged 8, who won the council’s Christmas colouring competition, alongside the Mayor of Dartford Cllr Peter Whapshott, Father Christmas and cast members from the pantomime. The day started at 10am with roaming street performers presented by Cohesion Plus, face painters, magicians and balloon artists working the High Street, the Orchards Shopping Centre and the Priory Shopping Centre. The Brewery Square stage carried a Q&A with panto stars Linda Robson and Anton Stephens, a singalong led by the panto dame, Dartford’s Got Talent winner Olivia Bell, local singer Jason Allen and tribute acts, with the Orchard West Ukulele Group and a signing choir moving between the shopping centres and the stage. (insideKENT, 13 November 2025)

Note the start time. 2025 began at 10am; the council’s 2026 listing says 11am, an hour later. It has not explained the change, and the hours may yet firm up.

The 2022 edition ran on the same template, with roaming entertainment from 10am and the action shifting to Brewery Square in the afternoon, on a bill that included Bobby Davro, Union J’s George Shelley and Dancing On Ice winner Regan Gascoigne. (Kent Online) The 2026 hours, 11am to 6.30pm, are far longer than a single stage show, which points to the same shape again.

The colouring competition is the route to switching the lights on. It is open to primary schools across the borough and the council runs it each autumn.

Getting there and parking

Brewery Square is at Market Street, DA1 1EY, a few minutes’ walk from Dartford station. The council’s own car parks are the practical option, and most of them charge £1 for two hours. Mansion House Gardens off Market Street is the closest paid car park, and it is ticketless: you pay by coin, contactless card or phone, with nothing to display. If you want free parking and do not mind the walk, Cranford Road on the Central Park access road gives two free hours, Monday to Saturday, 8am to 8pm.

Full charges, free options and the rules on each car park are on our Dartford parking page.

No road closure order for the switch-on had been published as of 3 September. If one appears, it will show up alongside the rest of the week’s disruption on our Dartford roadworks page, which we refresh weekly.

The rest of Dartford’s festive calendar

Every entry below is from the council’s own events system, read on 3 September 2026. Where it says TBC, that is the council’s word, not ours.

Santa’s House does not yet add up. The council’s listing says Saturdays and Sundays from 28 November to 19 December, which is four weekends and seven days. Its own procurement notice for the same event says it has “grown from a single day to 6 days held over 3 weekends late November and into December”. The two do not agree, and the price is still TBC. The sessions are run for the council at the Mansion House by Pop Up Adventures Limited of Gravesend, on a contract worth £58,000 excluding VAT, £69,600 including, signed on 4 September 2025 and extendable to August 2028. (Find a Tender, Santa’s House 2025-2028)

Santa on Tour is the one to watch if you are outside the town centre. The council describes Santa travelling “across all of Dartford” on a vintage red fire engine with free giveaways, and says it will “share full details of Santa’s Tour later on this year”. The listing recurs weekly on a Sunday between 6 and 19 December, which gives Sunday 6 and Sunday 13 December, since 19 December is a Saturday. The council may well add dates when it publishes the route, but as listed it is two Sundays to cover the whole borough. (Dartford Borough Council)

Is there a Dartford Christmas market this year?

Not one that has been announced. Two Christmas market pages are still live on the council’s own site and both are out of date, which is easy to mistake for this year’s news:

• Christmas Night Market reads as current, with a full description of a festive night market in the High Street, “Friday, December 5, from 5pm to 9pm”. Its date field says 5th December 2025. (Dartford Borough Council)
• Christmas Markets opens with “Dartford’s Christmas market is back for 2023” and is dated 15 to 22 December 2023. (Dartford Borough Council)

Dartford does run a night market series through the year, and the most recent listed edition is Friday 4 September in the High Street, 5pm to 9pm. A festive edition in early December 2026 would be consistent with 2025, but nothing has been published, so we are not going to put a date on it. We will update this page when the council lists one.

For a covered, indoor alternative, Winterland and the ice rink return to Bluewater’s West Car Park from Saturday 7 November, and the planning permission now runs to January 2029. The dates, opening pattern and the parking cost are in our report on Winterland’s three-year approval.

What else is on

The town’s other big winter fixture is the pantomime. Cinderella opens the refurbished Orchard Theatre on Saturday 12 December and runs to Sunday 3 January, with Joe Pasquale in the cast. We have the full performance-by-performance price list and the four access performances on our Dartford pantomime page.

Bonfire night is a separate event run by a separate organisation, in Central Park rather than the town centre. Its 2026 date has not been announced yet, and the reasons and the likely timing are on our Dartford fireworks page.

Year-round ideas are on our guide to things to do in Dartford.

What we will update, and when

• Line-up and host: contractually due to the council by 19 September, publicity material by 3 October. Neither date is a public announcement date, but a public list should not be far behind them.
• Santa’s House prices and opening times: still TBC on the council’s listing.
• Santa on Tour route: the council says full details later this year.
• A 2026 Christmas night market: nothing listed. The 2025 edition ran on the first Friday of December.
• Road closures or parking suspensions: none published for 14 November as of 3 September.

Details can change. Check the council’s events page before you travel.