Abbey Gardens fireworks tickets are on sale for Sat 7 Nov 2026: £8 adult, £22 family, gates 5pm, display 7.30pm, online sales close 9am Fri 6 Nov.
Bonfire night itself falls on Thursday 5 November 2026. The display almost everyone in Bury St Edmunds means runs three days later, on Saturday 7 November 2026, inside the Abbey Gardens.
It is confirmed, the prices are published, and tickets are now on sale.
Updated 3 October: advance tickets are on sale through Enthuse, online sales now close at 9am on Friday 6 November, under-3s go free, and Linton has confirmed its own display for the same night.
What is confirmed for 2026
St Nicholas Hospice Care’s Fireworks Night page gives the date as Saturday 7 November 2026 at the Abbey Gardens, Mustow Street, IP33 1LS. Gates open at 5pm, positioned at the Abbey Gate, and the fireworks start at 7.30pm.
Two details from the same page that people usually find out too late:
- Last entry on the gate is 7.30pm, the moment the display starts.
- The night does not end with the rockets. There is stage entertainment after the display and the event closes at 9pm.
It is run as a partnership between St Edmundsbury Theatre Services, St Nicholas Hospice Care and Bury St Edmunds Town Council, and the money goes to the hospice, which supports people across West Suffolk and Thetford.
Tickets: on sale now, online until 9am Friday 6 November
The hospice’s event page now carries a “Buy tickets online” button, and it leads to the Enthuse booking page, headed “Abbey Gardens Fireworks 2026, Saturday, 7 November 2026, 17:00”. Its FAQ says online sales run until 9am on Friday 6 November, or until capacity is reached. In September the same FAQ gave midnight on Wednesday 4 November, so the online window is a day and a half longer than first published.
Prices are set out in the event’s terms and conditions:
| Ticket | 2026 advance | 2025 advance |
|---|---|---|
| Adult, over 18 | £8.00 | £7.50 |
| Child, under 18 | £5.50 | £5.00 |
| Family, up to 2 adults and 2 children | £22.00 | £20.00 |
| On the gate | £10.00 | £10.00 |
Every advance price has gone up, by 50p a head and £2 on a family, while the gate price has not moved. That narrows the gap between booking ahead and turning up to £2 an adult. The hospice still says advance booking is recommended, because entry on the night depends on capacity.
Children under 3 go free, but each one must be with a paying adult. Pushchairs are allowed. One small mismatch to know about: the hospice’s terms price an adult as over 18 and a child as under 18, while the Enthuse booking form labels its bands “Adult over 17” and “Child 3 - 16 years”. For a 17-year-old, the cheaper child ticket is what the organiser’s own terms allow.
Do not book from the ticket page you find in a search. The TicketSource listing for “Fireworks Night, Abbey Gardens” is the 2025 event, headed Saturday 1st November 2025. The 2026 sale is on Enthuse, reached from the hospice’s own page.
What you cannot bring
Bag searches happen on entry to the Abbey Gardens. The prohibited list is longer than most:
- Personal fireworks, sparklers or anything flammable
- Alcohol, glass containers, drones and weapons
- Pets. No dogs at all, service animals excepted
The no-sparklers rule catches people out every year, because it is a bonfire night event in a public park. Bring glow sticks instead if you want something for the children to hold.
Greene King brings a beer truck, there are hot food vendors, and there is a small funfair and amusements for children.
If the weather turns
The event goes ahead in light rain. It can be called off for genuinely bad weather, and if it is, the organisers post on St Nicholas Hospice Care’s website and social media and email ticket holders. Refunds in that case go through Enthuse. Tickets are otherwise non-refundable.
Parking, and the car parks that lock before you get back
The hospice names Ram Meadow on Cotton Lane, IP33 1XP, as the closest car park, at the usual charges. West Suffolk Council’s page for the site gives it 823 spaces, a 2.1 metre height limit in the main section, and this rule that matters on a night ending at 9pm: entry closes at 10pm, but you can drive out at any time. All day there costs £3.50.
Two nearby car parks will be shut before the fireworks even start:
- The Arc-Cattlemarket underground level locks at 6pm. If you are locked in, the number is 01284 763252. The 648 surface spaces are unaffected.
- Parkway surface locks at 6.30pm.
Olding Road, IP33 3TA is the free option. It is West Suffolk House’s staff car park, 373 spaces, and it is open to the public and free from 3.30pm to 11pm on weekdays and 7am to 11pm at weekends, so a Saturday night display sits inside its hours. Our parking page has the full tariff table and the free periods.
No road closure has been published for the display. Suffolk County Council’s statutory temporary traffic orders for this district, filed on the Public Notice Portal, carry nothing for Angel Hill, Mustow Street or the Abbey Gardens on 7 November as at 3 October. The only Angel Hill order in the latest notices is a 10 metre footway closure by the War Memorial for a water connection, 5 to 7 October, which is long gone by fireworks night. Anything that does appear will show on our roadworks and travel page.
How big is it
The 2025 display drew 4,500 people and raised nearly £40,000 for the hospice, according to SuffolkNews on 2 December 2025. That is the scale to plan for: a sold-out park, not a village green.
The other displays near Bury, and where they actually stand
Three displays run within reach of the town most years. One has now published a 2026 date.
- Horringer, at the Ickworth Park gates. horringerfireworks.co.uk still headlines “Friday, 7th November 2025”, with 2025’s £5 adult entry and free under-16s. It is the same site, unchanged, and there is no 2026 date on it.
- Bury St Edmunds Rugby Club, the Greene King IPA Haberden on Southgate Green. The club’s news page currently returns no items at all. Its 2025 night was Friday 7 November, which is the date the hospice has taken this year.
- Linton Fireworks, the big schools fundraiser near Haverhill, is confirmed for Saturday 7 November 2026 at Linton Infants School, the same night as the Abbey Gardens. lintonfireworks.co.uk says “Timings tba” and has no 2026 prices yet. It is run by volunteers for the four village schools.
Horringer and the rugby club are not cancelled. Both are the sort of volunteer-run night that gets its date out on Facebook four weeks ahead and nowhere else.
What this page will say next
The week of the display, this page gets any sold-out notice, any road closure and Linton’s times. Until then: Abbey Gardens on Saturday 7 November, £8 an adult, tickets on Enthuse until 9am on Friday 6 November.
Checked on 3 October 2026 against St Nicholas Hospice Care’s event page and terms, the Enthuse booking page, TicketSource, the Public Notice Portal, and the Horringer, Bury St Edmunds Rugby Club and Linton Fireworks websites. Car park details checked 4 September.
Have your say