Bonfire night falls on Thursday 5 November. Ashford Rugby Club, the borough's main display, has no 2026 date and its ticket page still shows last year.

Bonfire night 2026 falls on Thursday 5 November. If you are looking for an Ashford fireworks display, the honest position on 5 September is that nothing in the borough has a published 2026 date. That is normal for early September, and the pattern from last year tells you roughly what to expect and when to book. This page is checked against the organisers’ own pages and will be updated as each one announces.

Ashford Rugby Club: the borough’s main display

The big one is at Ashford Rugby Club, Kinneys Fields, Kinneys Lane, Ashford TN24 9QB. It runs its own box office at ashfordrugbyclubboxoffice.co.uk, and as of today that site is still headed “Ashford Rugby Club Fireworks Display 1st November 2025” and reads “Online Booking Now Closed. Pay at Gate.” The club’s Yapsody ticket shop at ashfordrugby.yapsody.com currently returns “No events on sale right now. But check back soon!!!”, and the club’s own /club-calendar and /latest-news pages both return “Sorry.... Nothing to see here…”.

So there is no 2026 date, no gate time and no 2026 price. What last year looked like, from the club’s own box office page:

  • Saturday 1 November 2025. Gates open 5pm, display 7pm.
  • Advance tickets: adult £8, child under 16 £4, family of two adults and two children £20. Children under 3 free.
  • On the gate: adult £10, child £5, family £25. Card preferred.
  • Real ales, outdoor bars from 5pm and food stalls.

Those are 2025 prices from a page that has not been updated, printed here as history rather than as this year’s cost.

The parking is the part to plan. The club states plainly that there is no onsite parking. Its own advice sends drivers to the Julie Rose Stadium, TN24 9QX, and warns that the Bybrook Barn car park is not available and will be locked at 5:30pm. Allow time to walk from wherever you leave the car. See also our parking in Ashford page, and note that the free-after-3pm arrangement at Elwick Place ends on 1 November, which is exactly the weekend a display would fall on.

Woodchurch: the low-bang display is not in the 2026 calendar

The South of England Rare Breeds Centre at Woodchurch ran its first Low Bang Fireworks Night on 1 November 2025: a kids’ disco from 5pm, food from 5pm at the Granary Restaurant, The Cabin and The Kiosk, and a 20-minute low-noise display at 6:30pm, billed as fully accessible (canterburyoasttrust.org.uk).

It is worth knowing that the centre’s current What’s On calendar, which runs month by month from September 2026 to August 2027, lists Halloween from 24 October to 1 November 2026 and A Truly Magical Christmas from 28 November to 23 December 2026, and no fireworks night at all. That is not proof it has been dropped, but a repeat has not been scheduled in the calendar where the 2025 one would sit.

The village displays that went

Two Ashford-area pub and village displays stopped in 2024 and are worth ruling out before you drive. KentOnline reported on 1 October 2024 that the Farriers Arms at Mersham cancelled its display, its publicans citing “immensely rising costs, and a turbulent financial year”, and that Hamstreet Fireworks was also off, with organisers then “working on a plan to ensure its return in 2025” (kentonline.co.uk). Neither has published a 2026 date.

What we checked, and what is still open

Display 2026 date Source checked
Ashford Rugby Club, Kinneys Fields Not published Club box office, Yapsody shop, club site
Rare Breeds Centre, Woodchurch Not in the 2026 calendar Centre’s own What’s On listing
Farriers Arms, Mersham None since 2024 KentOnline, October 2024
Hamstreet None published KentOnline, October 2024

The two aggregator sites that carry Kent listings, ukfireworksdisplays.co.uk and KentOnline’s county round-up, also have nothing dated for Ashford in 2026. The county guide’s most recent Ashford entries are the rugby club and the Rare Breeds Centre, both dated Saturday 1 November 2025.

If you want to be ready: the rugby club sold advance tickets at a 20% saving on the gate price last year, so the announcement is the moment to book rather than the week of the display. We will update this page when a date appears.

Sources