Medway Fireworks: Upnor 7 Nov, No Council Display

Bonfire night 2026 falls on Thursday 5 November, and in Medway the answer to “where are the fireworks” is shorter than most people expect. There is no council display. There has not been one since 2022.

One public display in the Medway towns is confirmed for this year: Medway Yacht Club at Lower Upnor, Saturday 7 November, 5pm to 10pm, listed as “Bonfire Night, Public Event” on the club’s own events calendar.

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

Medway Yacht Club, Lower Upnor: confirmed

The club’s calendar entry gives the date, the times and nothing else. There is no ticket link, no price and no running order on it yet.

Two things from last year are worth knowing before you assume you can turn up. The club’s own November 2025 calendar records the event as “Bonfire & Fire Works Night, SOLD OUT”, on Saturday 8 November, 6pm to 10pm. In 2024 it ran on Saturday 2 November, also 6pm to 10pm, ticketed through Eventbrite. In both years it was ticketed in advance, and last year it sold out.

This year starts an hour earlier and runs an hour longer, 5pm to 10pm against 6pm to 10pm. If the pattern holds, tickets will go on sale in October and will not last. Watch the club’s calendar rather than waiting for a poster.

The council’s free display is gone

Medway Council’s last free fireworks display was Saturday 5 November 2022 at the Great Lines Heritage Park in Gillingham, choreographed to music, starting at 7pm. Those details come from the council’s own announcement of 24 October 2022, which it has since deleted from medway.gov.uk and which now survives only in the Internet Archive’s copy. At the time the council said thousands were expected and that the display was “always extremely popular with residents of all ages”.

It was scrapped at the council’s budget meeting the following March, a saving of £40,000, as reported by KentOnline.

It has not come back. The council’s own Events Medway page now describes its whole festival programme as the Sweeps festival, the Rochester Christmas Market, the Dickensian Festival and Armed Forces Day. Fireworks are not in the list.

We also checked Visit Medway, which is Medway Council’s own tourism site and runs the district’s official events database. Querying it for everything between 1 October 2026 and 10 January 2027 returns 15 events, and not one of them is a fireworks display. Its “Fireworks” listing category is empty.

Stoke Medway Airfield: not yet announced for 2026

The other display Medway people travel to is at Stoke Medway Airfield on the Hoo Peninsula, and it is not on the airfield’s events page for 2026 yet.

Its 2025 event, still live on the airfield’s own site, gives a useful picture of what it is: Saturday 15 November 2025, gates at 4pm for the funfair with the bar and hot food open from the same time, live music from 5pm, bonfire lit at 6.30pm and the display at 7pm, with pyrotechnics by Phoenix Fireworks alongside The Mortley Group. The site is Burrows Lane, Middle Stoke, Rochester ME3 9RN. That page also records the event reaching its pre-booked capacity, with tickets then available on the door.

Nothing has been published for 2026. If it runs to form it will be a Saturday in mid-November rather than the weekend closest to the 5th.

If you are letting off your own

The council’s fireworks and explosives page sets out the rules it enforces. Shops can sell fireworks from 15 October to 10 November without an extra licence, and again from 26 December to 31 December, and around Chinese New Year and Diwali. Selling outside those windows needs a further licence from the council.

Anyone putting on an event that includes a firework display needs a temporary event notice from the council. That is the licence trail behind every display on this page, and it is also why a genuinely new Medway display would leave a public record before it happened.

Before you travel

Lower Upnor is a narrow riverside lane with very little parking, and the yacht club has not published any parking arrangement for the evening. Check Medway roadworks and travel before you set off, and our parking in Medway page for the council car parks in Rochester and Strood if you plan to park further out and walk.

What we are still waiting for

Ticket sales, prices and any road or parking arrangement for the Upnor display, expected in October, and any 2026 announcement from Stoke Medway Airfield, expected in October. We will update this page when either appears.