Bonfire Night itself is Thursday 5 November this year. In a year where the 5th falls on a weekend, that's one night and everyone's displays happen on top of each other. This year it hasn't worked out that way — the organised events have scattered themselves across three separate dates instead, and for a van that's three separate trading decisions rather than one.

A sample of what's actually on: Heaton Park in Manchester is running its display on the 5th itself, Norwood Park's is on Sunday 1 November, and the following weekend — Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November — carries the heaviest load, with Fire.FEST at Braywick Park in Maidenhead, Alexandra Palace, Battersea Park and the Food Museum's event at Stowmarket all landing on those two days. That's a genuine spread across more than a week, not a single night to win or lose.

The practical upshot is booking earlier than you might for a one-night event. Several of these already list food vendors as part of the event, which means a pitch process with a deadline, not a turn-up-and-see arrangement — check the organiser's own website for how they take applications, and do it this week if you want one of the three dates rather than whichever is left.

What's different about trading after dark in November

A summer festival pitch and a Bonfire Night one aren't the same job. A few things worth planning for specifically:

  • Light, not just heat. It's properly dark by 5pm in early November. If your hatch lighting is an afterthought in summer, it's a visibility problem here — customers need to be able to read a menu board from a few feet back in the dark and the cold.
  • Hot food holding matters more. Cold hands want hot food fast, and food safety doesn't get more forgiving because it's November — if anything, the gap between “ready” and “served” needs to be shorter, not longer, when everyone's queuing in the cold rather than ambling round a summer field.
  • Queue speed is the whole evening. People at a fireworks event are there for the fireworks, not for your queue. A slow hatch at 6pm is a hatch with nobody left to serve by the time the display starts — speed at the point of order and payment is worth more here than it is at a leisurely summer market.
  • Cashless isn't optional any more. Fumbling for change in the cold and dark loses you the next three customers while you do it. A card-and-QR setup that's merely convenient in July is close to essential on a cold November evening.

None of that is exotic — it's the same van, the same menu, mostly the same kit. But three dates spread across more than a week means three separate prep-and-staff decisions, not one big push, and it's worth working out now which of them you can actually cover rather than finding out on the 4th of November that you've said yes to two events on the same night by mistake.

If you've already got pitches booked for any of the three dates, the planning is done — this is mostly a nudge for anyone still deciding. If you haven't, the organisers above are a reasonable place to start, and there'll be others local to you running the same weekend.