Between the 10th to the 21st of November Blystra Arts are visiting almost all of the Newquay schools to deliver their annual lantern making workshops ahead of the annual Newquay Lantern Parade on 21st November. Over a two-week period the company, an arts company with a community focus, will visit seven schools across the town, working with young people aged from 4 to 16 years to make willow lanterns. In the middle of this creative fortnight the company will hold their annual free Community Lantern Making Workshop too, so that anyone who would like to can come along to make a lantern and get involved.

The new home of the Lantern Parade event is down in Trenance Valley, and much the same as last year will be linked in with the Trenance Cottages Light Switch-On event happening on the same night. The lanterns will process from 6pm through Trenance Valley to the cottages, with viewing points in both Trenance Gardens and the Boating Lake.

This year Blystra Arts, who deliver all the creative activity related to the parade, have been able to enhance the event even further by linking the project in with another of their 2025 projects, ‘Stories from the Station’, a heritage project running in 2025 to coincide with the 200 year anniversary of the first passenger steam train journey which happened on the 27th September 1825. This project saw Blystra working with the community making five willow train carriages, each one depicting a different era, story or character related to Newquay Railway station which has been explored during the life of the project. Carriages have been created and decorated alongside, Your Art Connect, Age UK, Newquay MIND, Treviglas Academy and the general community in sessions which happened in Sept, Oct and which are still running in Nov. If you attend on the 21st you will be able to see the inaugural journey of this one-of-a-kind willow train lantern making its way though Trenance Valley as part of the procession, parading under the viaduct, which is such an iconic landmark in the town, completed in 1849 by Joseph Treffry, to transport minerals from central Cornwall to Newquay Harbour to then be transported to the rest of the country and the British Empire. As well as the steam train lantern there will be other big lanterns to see on the night, with Newquay Tretherras and Treviglas Academy also set to make lanterns to contribute to the parade and each of the primary school children also parading smaller more traditional lanterns too.

The Newquay Lantern Parade and creative activity in 2025, has once again been made possible with support from Experience Newquay, Coodes Solicitors and Newquay BID. Experience Newquay is a Cornwall Council funded project which is part-funded by the UK Government through the Shared Prosperity Fund. This is the second year that Coodes Solicitors have sponsored the lantern activities and parade, and they are the main business sponsor of the 2025 event too.

For the full event line-up of what’s happening for the lantern parade and Trenance Light Switch On Event go to Newquay Lantern Parade and creative activity – Blystra Arts.