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Stand on Blackpool Promenade after dark in autumn and the light comes at you from every side. Festoon strings run across the road at the southern end, lamp posts glow, the three piers shine and the seafront businesses are lit along with them. Blackpool Tower is lit top to bottom in LED. Trams go past wearing lights of their own. Walk north towards Bispham and the festoon gives way to tableaux, large illuminated scenes set back beyond the tram tracks that you can walk right up to. Over a million bulbs, in all, and Blackpool first lit its seafront like this in 1879.
We at Travelmyth, the hotel search engine that ranks stays by your interests and needs across 60 stay categories, have put together this guide to the Blackpool Illuminations. It covers the 2026 dates and how the display changes after early November, what time the lights come on each night, where the display starts and ends, and the ways of getting along it: on foot, by tram, by car and by bike. It also covers the Switch-On, the Lightpool Festival, what costs money, and the four dates the history turns on.
The start date is the settled part. The 2026 season begins on Friday 4 September 2026, and the lights are on nightly from that date. Blackpool's official event listing gives the same opening day, and the Switch-On is that evening.
The season now runs in two parts. The full traditional route, from Starr Gate to Red Bank Road, runs from 4 September through 1 November 2026. The Illuminations then continue through the festive season, shining nightly until 3 January 2027.
The opening date moves from year to year: the season traditionally begins around the end of August or the beginning of September. The finish has moved too. A traditional season ran 66 nights and ended in early November, and the lights were later extended right the way through Christmas and the New Year.
There is no single switch-on time. The lights come on later in early September, when it gets dark late, and earlier as the season goes on. Think of it in blocks of a week: when the time changes, it changes from a Friday night through to the following Thursday. The lights also stay on longer at weekends than midweek.
In early September, the lights typically run from 8.00pm to 10.30pm on weeknights. By late October, after the clocks change, they come on shortly after 5pm.
The daily on and off times are published as a table for the season, and they are official times from Blackpool Council's Illuminations department. Check them in the week you travel rather than the month before.
The display runs along the Promenade from Starr Gate, at the southern edge of town by Squires Gate, north to Red Bank Road in Bispham. That is the whole length of the esplanade and promenade, then about a mile further north, past Gynn Square and along Bispham's Queen's Promenade. The traditional Illuminations route stretches for about six miles in total.
The two ends do not look alike. From central Blackpool south towards South Shore the lights are mostly festoon strung across the road and lit lamp posts. The Bispham end has the tableaux instead, large illuminated scenes with some interactive set-ups among them. Forty of them run along the cliffs from North Shore to Bispham, covering more than 5,000 square metres, with a pedestrian walkway their full length, set back beyond the tramway. If you only walk one section, that is the one.
The Blackpool Tramway runs the entire length of the Illuminations, which makes a tram the simplest way to see the whole display without driving it. The public service trams run the route, very busy but well managed. Alongside them, decorated trams carry passengers along the illuminated stretch between Pleasure Beach and Bispham, and open-top trams run too.
The illuminated trams are a separate, bookable thing. Tours go through the Blackpool Transport website and leave the Pleasure Beach Loop stop each evening at dusk. They cost more than a service tram, so if the point is to watch the lights from a seat, the public trams do the same job for less.
Where you board matters as much as which tram you take. Boarding away from the busiest central stops may make it easier to find space.
Most visitors see the Illuminations from a car, coach or bus, and Blackpool's own advice is that driving through is worth doing. The one-way promenade system of past years is gone; the roads are open as normal. Expect it to be slow.
Direction depends on what you are after. For the clearest view, start at Starr Gate and drive north to Bispham, so the display sits on your left the whole way. For less traffic on a weekend, the official tip is the opposite: drive north to south. Saturdays are a busy night, and midweek is the best way to avoid the heavy traffic.
Coming off the M55, the most direct route to the southern end is along Squires Gate Lane. Parking is the hard part of the evening, and the earlier you arrive the easier it gets. Car parks near the Promenade fill early, so arriving before dusk gives you more options.
If you would rather not drive it at all, staying within walking distance removes the problem. Travelmyth lists stays in Blackpool ranked by the categories that matter to you, and our guide to Blackpool covers what sits near each end of the front.
Walking the Illuminations costs nothing. There is no ticket and no admission charge: you walk along the Promenade and you look. The display relies on donations instead, welcomed at huts at either end of the Promenade, by cash or contactless.
You do not have to walk all of it. A round trip from Bispham down past the Tower and back is about 5.5 miles, a long evening with young children. The short version is the tableaux walk at the north end, a walk-through section of long-standing favourites including the Haunted Hotel and the Teddy Bears Picnic, the oldest illumination still on display. It is the official suggestion for anyone who cannot walk far.
Two things are worth leaving the car for. The installations on the Tower Festival Headland are meant to be seen up close, and the 3D projection shows mapped onto Blackpool Tower are best watched on foot, from the Comedy Carpet just outside it.
The extras are where the money goes. A horse and cart ride along the front is one of them, and it is not a budget treat; prices are set by the individual carriage owners, so check the fare before you board. Wrap up warm and give yourself a couple of hours.
The 2026 Switch-On is on Friday 4 September, on the Tower Festival Headland in the shadow of Blackpool Tower. It is a free outdoor event, and it starts the season.
Paddy McGuinness has been announced as the 2026 Switch-On star. The format is long-standing: a celebrity pulls the switch in a specially erected arena, and Blackpool's tourism body calls it the biggest event in the town's calendar. Since 2014 it has in practice been a weekend rather than one night.
Entry arrangements have moved from year to year. For the 2025 event the whole thing was free to access with no tickets required, a change from the years before it. For 2026 the arena places went to a random draw of 20,000 tickets, which closed at 11pm on Sunday 9 August, with a £5 admin fee per booking for successful applicants. Guaranteed Golden Circle entry is also offered at £12 plus the administration fee, subject to availability, and anyone without a ticket is welcome in the resort for the atmosphere.
The lights go on late on that one night: the Illuminations timetable currently lists them from 9.15pm to 1am on Friday 4 September 2026, though event timings may still be adjusted.
Before the Switch-On comes Ride the Lights, a free, traffic-free preview of the display on two wheels. It is not a bike race, and you ride as much or as little of the route as you like, anywhere between Starr Gate and Red Bank Road at Bispham. For 2026 the preview night is listed as Tuesday 1 September.
Lightpool is not the same thing as the Illuminations. The Illuminations are a seafront display that runs every night of the season. Lightpool is a festival of contemporary light art that sits inside that season for a fortnight.
It runs in late October, over the half-term holiday. The 2026 dates are 21 to 31 October.
The programme is free to see. Last year's ran to 3D projection shows, a light trail, installations and live performances. For 2026, a new installation called What the Gull?! by the Manchester-based artist Caroline Daly has been announced, and the British artist Doddz has been announced for this year's brand-new Blackpool Tower projection mapping commission.
Lightpool has run since 2016 and is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation for 2023 to 2026, the only light-sector organisation in that portfolio.
Four dates mark key stages in the early history of the Illuminations, and they are not interchangeable. The first is 1879. On 18 September that year Blackpool switched on eight carbon arc lamps along the seafront, mounted on 60-foot poles. The public called them artificial sunshine. Homes at the time were still lit by candles or oil lamps.
The second is May 1912, when the first display resembling the modern one was staged for Blackpool's first royal visit: Princess Louise opened a new section of the Promenade called Princess Parade, hung with what was described as festoons of garland lamps, about 10,000 bulbs.
With the outbreak of the First World War the displays stopped, and there were none until 1925. The third is 1932, when animated tableaux went up along the cliffs from North Shore to Bispham and the display was extended to the Starr Gate–Red Bank Road route it still follows today.
The fourth is 1934, when the first Switch-On ceremony was held and Lord Derby flicked the switch. The year after, the Mayor handed his turn to Audrey Mosson, the 15-year-old Railway Queen. The Second World War interrupted the display, and post-war austerity meant the lights were not switched on again until 1949. There has been no further interruption since the 1950s.