Bonfire Night in Whitley Bay

Plenty of towns put on a bonfire night. Whitley Bay puts on the borough's. North Tyneside Council's annual fireworks display is fired from The Links, with the sea behind it and the whole coast turning out for it, and it belongs to Wallsend and Longbenton and Tynemouth as much as it does to us. That is a nice thing to host, and it is worth saying out loud.

One date to fix in your head first. Bonfire Night 2026 falls on Thursday 5 November, but the Whitley Bay display does not. It moves to the nearest weekend: Sunday 1 November.

North Tyneside Fireworks Display, The Links

The North Tyneside Fireworks Display takes place on Sunday 1 November 2026 at The Links, Whitley Bay, NE26 1TQ. The site opens at 6pm, the display goes up at 7pm, it runs for around fifteen minutes, and the whole thing is wrapped up by 7.30pm.

It is completely free. There is no ticketing, no booking, no wristband, no gate. You walk down to the seafront and watch. For a family with small children that is close to the ideal format: a short, sharp, properly big display at a sensible hour, with everyone home well before bedtime. The Links is the open green strip between the promenade and Whitley Bay itself, running past Waves Leisure Centre and the skatepark, so there is plenty of room to spread out and no single crush point.

Best for: Free, unticketed, fifteen minutes, done by half seven. One of the easiest family nights out in the North East.

Ignore any site quoting you a ticket price

This is worth stating plainly, because it catches people out every year. Several aggregator and "what's on" listing sites publish ticket prices for the North Tyneside display, usually in the range of eight to fifteen pounds with a family bundle. Those prices are wrong. They have been lifted from other, unrelated paid displays elsewhere in the region and attached to this one, in some cases by sites that generate their listings automatically and never check them.

The borough display has run free of charge for many years and it is free again in 2026. If a page is asking you to buy a ticket for The Links, it is not selling you one — it is either mistaken or selling you something else. The council's own tourism site is the source to trust.

Getting there

Take the Metro. Whitley Bay station is on the Yellow Line with direct trains from Newcastle, North Shields and Wallsend, and it is a walk of roughly ten minutes down through the town to the seafront. Cullercoats is a reasonable alternative if you are approaching from the south.

The seafront car parks fill early on display night and the roads around The Links get slow, so driving is the option that costs you the most time even though the parking itself is free. If you do drive, come early and be prepared to walk in.

Eating before or after

The promenade is the obvious place to build the evening around. Spanish City sits a few minutes south of The Links and holds several options under one dome: Trenchers for fish and chips, Valerie's Tearoom for something lighter earlier in the day, and The Split Chimp in the plaza outside for a pint with a sea view. At the northern end of The Links, near the lighthouse, the Tavern and Galley is a big seafront pub with its own car park, which makes it a sensible meeting point if your group is arriving from different directions. Book if you can — the whole coast is out that night.

A grown-up alternative: Bonfire Night Dinner at 1910

If fireworks in the cold is not your idea of an evening, 1910 inside the Spanish City dome is running a Bonfire Night Dinner on the same night, Sunday 1 November, with a 6.30pm arrival for a 7pm sit-down. It is £50 a head and booking in advance through Spanish City is required. Treat it as an alternative to the display rather than a way of watching it, and note the sit-down time overlaps with the fireworks.

If you want fireworks on the night itself

Only a handful of displays in the region actually fall on 5 November. The nearest is Blue Flames at Benton, NE12 9SF, on Thursday 5 November — gates 5.30pm, display 7.30pm, tickets £8.50 adult, £5.50 child, £25 family, sold online only with no sales on the gate, and five minutes from Benton Metro. The weekend after, Tynemouth Cricket Club on Preston Avenue, NE30 2BE, runs its display on Saturday 7 November, gates from 5pm and fireworks from 7pm, at £4 to £7.

Going safely

Organised displays almost always ban sparklers and personal fireworks on site, so leave them at home rather than have them taken off you at the entrance. Dogs are far happier indoors with the curtains shut and something on the television than anywhere near a seafront launch site. And if someone in your group finds the noise difficult, the shorter displays help: The Links runs about fifteen minutes, while Blyth's free seafront event on Saturday 31 October opens with a deliberately low-noise display at 6pm before the main one at 7.30pm.

Wrap up properly. It is November, it is the North Sea, and the wind comes straight off it.

More across the region in our Bonfire Night in the North East round-up. Know of a Whitley Bay display we have missed? Get in touch via our contact page.