The switch-on is Saturday 14 November in Gostrey Meadow, 1pm to 6pm, lights on at 4.30pm. Free entry, Santa's grotto, and the council page still showing 2023.

The Farnham Christmas Lights Switch-On is on Saturday 14 November 2026 in Gostrey Meadow, from 1pm to 6pm, and the lights themselves go on at 4.30pm. Entry is free. Farnham Town Council confirmed the date on its own event page, last updated on 16 July 2026, and repeats it in the stallholder terms and conditions it published for the event.

Checked on 4 September 2026 against the council’s own published material.

What is on, and when

The council describes it as an afternoon of free live entertainment from local schools, theatre groups and dance companies, with food, drink and gift stalls, children’s rides, face painting and Santa in his grotto. The switch-on itself is the 4.30pm moment; the rest runs either side of it.
Date Saturday 14 November 2026
Times 1pm to 6pm, lights on at 4.30pm
Where Gostrey Meadow, Union Road, Farnham, GU9 7RT
Cost Free
Organiser Farnham Town Council

If you run a school choir, dance school or theatre group, the deadline is Friday 16 October. The council is taking performer applications for slots of between five and fifteen minutes, allocated first come, first served. Its own words are that the performances “are an integral part of the afternoon and are always popular with the large crowd that gathers in the meadow”.

The council page that still says 2023

Search for the event and you will probably land on the council’s Christmas Lights Spectacular page, which describes a switch-on on “Saturday 18 November” starting at 1pm with the lights on at 4.30pm, a live nativity scene and a craft table.

That is the 2023 event. The 18th was a Saturday in 2023. In 2026 it is a Wednesday. The page carries no year, which is exactly why it reads as current.

The pages that are current for 2026 are the council’s switch-on event page and the performer application, both of which give 14 November.

Who pays for the lights, and why the date lands in mid-November

Farnham Town Council put the lights out to tender last summer and the award notice is public. On 31 July 2025 it awarded Farnham Christmas Lights 2025-2030 to Thomas Nagy Ltd of Garston Lane, Watford, at £280,000 excluding VAT, or £336,000 including it. The contract runs from 19 August 2025 to 31 March 2030, with an option to extend to 31 March 2035. (Find a Tender notice 046521-2025)

What the money buys, in the council’s own description: LED decorations across the town centre and “a number of smaller population centres”, installation and take down, annual testing of the lights and their fixings, and three real Christmas trees each year.

The useful line in that notice is the standing rule it sets: “Decorations will be switched on in the second week of November and remain in place until January each year.” That is why the switch-on lands where it does, and it will date next year’s too.

Getting there

Gostrey Meadow sits on Union Road, a couple of minutes’ walk from The Borough, and the meadow has no parking of its own.

  • It is a Saturday, so car parks are charged. Waverley’s free days in Farnham are Sundays and Christmas Day, not Saturdays. The all-day gap between car parks is wide, from £6.80 at St James to £24.40 at Central, so it is worth knowing where you are heading before you set off. Every tariff is on our Farnham parking page.
  • Blue Badge holders park free in every Waverley car park, and have done since 13 April 2026. The old yellow permit was scrapped.
  • Check the roads first. Surrey County Council still has outstanding white lining works to do in South Street and Union Road, the two roads at the meadow’s own junction, and the wider town centre programme is due to finish by the end of 2026. Our Farnham roadworks and travel page has what is live this week.

The rest of Farnham’s Christmas

  • Farnham Maltings Christmas Fair, Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19 November, with over 140 independent stalls. The Maltings has confirmed the dates but has not published times or admission prices.
  • Farnham Christmas Market, Sunday 13 December, 10am to 4pm, over 100 stalls. Its location has moved this year and had not been named as of early September.
  • The Mayor’s Civic Christmas Carol Service, which the council runs in December. No 2026 date published yet.

Still to be confirmed: the 2026 entertainment line-up and the stallholder list, which the council usually publishes in its Christmas in Farnham brochure in late October or early November. This page will be updated then.