Brighton Festival Children's Parade

The annual Brighton Festival Children's Parade is set to kick off the city's cultural calendar on Sunday, March 1, 2026. This year marks a significant milestone, as the parade celebrates its 40th anniversary. It serves as the traditional curtain-raiser for the wider Brighton Festival, which is scheduled to run later in the spring, from May 2 to May 25. If you are planning to attend, the parade starts at 10:30 am and, as always, is completely FREE to watch.

The theme announced for 2026 is 'Read All About It!', a choice inspired by the designation of 2026 as the National Year of Reading. The organizers, working jointly with the arts charity Same Sky, plan to use this theme to explore six different genres of children's literature. This means we can expect to see costumes and floats inspired by everything from realistic fiction and historical fiction to fantasy, traditional stories, science fiction, and graphic novels or illustrated books.

For those heading into the city centre, the route follows the familiar path, beginning on Jubilee Street and making its way down to Madeira Drive. While the Children's Parade gives us an early taste of the Festival atmosphere, the full program for the main Brighton Festival will be officially announced shortly before the parade takes place, specifically on February 18, 2026. This announcement will give us the complete picture of what to expect for the rest of May.