Following the success of the 2024 Trees and Tales event held in Trenance Valley, the Newquay Lantern Parade and Trenance Cottages Lights Switch On event is set to return on Friday 21st November from 5.30pm in Trenance Valley. Newquay BID, Blystra Arts and Trenance Cottages invite the community to wrap up warm and come out to celebrate the start of the festive season in the most magical way possible with a community lantern parade and light switch on event, celebrating the start of the festive season in Newquay with a light parade in a beautiful wooded, lakeside location.

Last year the parade moved to Trenance Valley and saw record numbers attend to participate in and watch the event which ended with the countdown to the first Trenance Cottages Light Switch On event. This change in location from the town centre to Trenance Valley, making the parade separate from the town’s usual light switch on activity, was well received by the community with the beautiful lakeside location of Trenance Valley enhancing the spectacle of the lanterns and the parade, taking it to another level of wonder and beauty.    

This year, the lantern parade will once again lead proceedings, with paraders leaving Trenance car park at 6pm before making their way to Trenance Cottages in a dazzling display through the valley. The Trenance Cottages switch on event, led by Radio Newquay, will happen at 6.30pm/6.45pm and will be followed by entertainment from crooner, Andy Marshall. Food will be available from The Garden Café so families can make an evening of it, staying on at the café and cottages to enjoy the entertainment. Throughout November Blystra Arts will be working with hundreds of school children and their families making willow lanterns in the lead up to the event, which all the Newquay schools will attend with their lanterns.

This year all the school and community activity leading up to the event has been funded by Experience Newquay, a Cornwall Council funded project, Coodes Solicitors, who are the main business sponsor of the event and Newquay BID, who will also be supporting with the logistics of the parade and parade management. The Switch On part of the event has been made possible with funding from Cornwall Council’s Community Chest funding. 

In 2025 the team from Blystra Arts have also been able to enhance the parade further by linking it in to their Stories from the Station project, a Great Western Railway year-long funded project, which has allowed them to open workshops out to other community groups, Youth Art Connect and Age UK as well as others to be confirmed and will give us extra time with Treviglas Academy who’ll be helping to create a five carriage steam train lantern made of willow, which will also be paraded through Trenance Valley as part of the project. 

The parade itself is only half of the event, and the other half of the night will be hosted by Trenance Cottages and will see them host their Light Switch On event for a second year. The switch on will happen from 6.30pm/6.45pm and alongside the Christmas tree, will light up the beautiful gardens including the foot bridge over the stream, and the façade of the heritage cottages themselves. 

There is also a chance for members of the community to make their own lanterns too at several community lantern making sessions which are being run by Blystra Arts. Join the Blystra team at the WI Hall on Crantock Street for their annual Willow Lantern Making workshop on Saturday 15th November (10.30-3.30pm). This is a drop-in session so there’s no need to book, just show up and make a lantern for the parade.

For more information about the parade, light switch on or community workshops please contact Ellen at ellen@blystraarts.org.

This year’s parade and light switch on activity has been funded by Cornwall Council’s Experience Newquay project, which is part-funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The parade is also funded by Coodes Solicitors, Newquay BID, Cornwall Council Community Chest funding and Great Western Railway.