Solihull town centre holds no Christmas lights switch-on ceremony. Here is what the BID has dated for 2026, and why Knowle is the switch-on people mean.

If you are searching for the date of Solihull’s Christmas lights switch-on, the honest answer is that the town centre does not hold one. The lights go up and they come on. There is no countdown, no guest, no stage.

That has been the position for a long time, and the pages that still rank for the query are what make it confusing. So here is what is actually dated for 2026, what is not, and where the switch-on you may be thinking of really happens.

What Solihull BID has dated for 2026

Solihull BID published its 2026 events diary in January. Three entries fall in the autumn and Christmas window, and none of them is a lights switch-on.

  • Solihull Spooktacular, Saturday 31 October, town centre
  • Solihull Jingle Bell Jog, Sunday 13 December
  • Solihull Festive Feast, 15 to 22 December

As at 4 September the BID has published no times, prices or programme for any of the three. It has an event page for the September food festival and for its summer events, but nothing yet for the autumn ones. (solihullbid.co.uk)

Three pages that mislead, and what they really are

The Solihull Observer’s “NO Christmas lights switch-on for Solihull after health and safety concerns” still surfaces near the top for this query. It is dated 18 November 2015, updated in October 2016. It reports the decision made that year, when the ice rink took up Mell Square and the BID said the space could not also hold a switch-on ceremony. Eleven years old, and still the clearest explanation of why there is no ceremony.

Solihull BID’s own “Solihull town centre lights up for Christmas” is dated 21 December 2023. It describes the tree in Mell Square, the walk-through wreath on Mill Lane and improved overhead lighting on the High Street, Drury Lane and Mill Lane, funded by the BID with Mell Square Limited. It is the newest thing the BID has published about the lights themselves, and it is nearly three years old.

The Solihull Observer’s “Christmas is underway as Shirley lights switched on” describes about 700 people watching Malcolm Stent switch on Shirley’s lights at Parkgate, with Santa arriving by sleigh, organised by Friends of Shirley Park and Shirley Lions Club for the Shirley Marketing Group. It is dated 3 December 2019. No Shirley date has been published for 2026.

One more thing worth knowing if you are following links: the BID deletes last year’s event pages rather than updating them. Its “Christmas in Solihull” page and its 2025 Spooktacular page both return a 404 now, even though search results still point at them.

Knowle is the switch-on people usually mean

Knowle holds a proper one. In 2025 it was Thursday 27 November, with music from around 4pm and Santa and Knowle Parish Church leading the countdown on Knowle High Street. Kenilworth Road and the High Street were closed from 3.45pm until about 6.30pm. It is free.

No 2026 date has been published. Visit Solihull’s event page for it still shows 27 November 2025 and has not been touched since October last year.

The useful tell here is the road closure. Solihull Council issued a special-event temporary order for the Knowle lights last November, and no equivalent 2026 order is on its register yet. When one appears there, the date is real. Our Solihull roadworks and travel page tracks that register. (visitsolihull.co.uk)

What Christmas in Solihull actually looks like

Visit Solihull’s festive guide for 2025, published on 3 December, is the best picture of what the season is here when nobody is switching anything on. Treat these as last year’s shape, not this year’s dates.

  • Festive Feast markets, High Street and Mill Lane, Tuesday 16 to Monday 22 December 2025, run by the BID with RR Events. The 2026 diary has the same market at 15 to 22 December.
  • Christmas Fun Day, Mell Square, Saturday 13 December 2025, 11am to 3pm, with a walk-in snow globe and an eight-foot inflatable penguin.
  • Jingle Bell Jog, Sunday 14 December 2025 at 10am. A 2.5km course round the town centre in a Santa suit, £12 for adults and £8 for children under 14, with the suit included and a medal at the end, raising money for the homelessness charity Change Into Action. The 2026 diary moves it to Sunday 13 December.
  • Touchwood: Santa’s grotto in Jubilee Walk, open daily until Christmas Eve and bookable online; the Grinch roaming the centre on 13 and 14 December; a reindeer on 7 December. Touchwood has published nothing festive for 2026 yet.
  • Core Theatre arts and makers markets, three December weekends, 11am to 5pm, funded through the Mayor’s Market Fund.
  • NOËL artisan market, Station Road, Knowle, first weekend of December.

The pantomime is the other fixture, and that one is confirmed and on sale: Peter Pan at The Core Theatre from 4 December. We have the dates, prices and access performances on our Solihull pantomime page.

When the 2026 dates should land

On last year’s timing, the Knowle switch-on was listed in early October and the BID’s festive detail appeared in the second half of November. We will update this page as each one is published, and again in the week of each event.

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