Barnet Christmas Fayre 2026: Sunday 6 December, Free

The date is set. The Barnet Christmas Fayre runs on Sunday 6 December 2026, from noon to 5pm, on Barnet High Street, and it is free to attend. The town’s own diary, LoveBarnet, carries the entry, listing the cost as free and naming the organisers as The Bull Theatre and Fixation Academy, with the official page at thebulltheatre.com.

Beyond the date, almost nothing about the 2026 programme has been published. The Bull’s own fayre page is still last year’s. So here is what the day looked like in 2025, on the organiser’s own account, which is the best guide to what to expect this year.

What happened last year, and what usually returns

The fayre is a free annual event, organised by The Bull Theatre and its committee in partnership with Barnet and Southgate College, St John the Baptist Church, Wesley Hall, The Spires Shopping Centre and Barnet Council. In 2025 it was sponsored for the first time by the estate agent Hunters.

It opens formally at noon, when the Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet cuts a ribbon on the High Street by Barnet Church and walks to the marquee on the Christmas Courtyard. Stalls line the High Street and fill the Christmas Courtyard, Tudor Hall (a craft fair), The Spires and Wesley Hall. Entertainment last year was spread across five places:

• Christmas Courtyard: children’s activities and dancing from local groups
• St John’s Church: live music, singing and choirs, plus teas, mulled wine and refreshments
• Wesley Hall: live music, and a tea and cakes cafe
• The Spires: live music, choirs, performances and meet-and-greet characters
• outside Waitrose: choirs, buskers and street entertainers, weather permitting

The Bull hosted Santa’s Grotto from 12.30pm to 4pm, free to enter with donations optional, reached through the front gate and along the side path to the Studio and cafe door, which the theatre says is step-free. It also ran LEON’s Magic Show at £5 a ticket plus booking fee. Both are worth watching for when the 2026 programme goes up: the grotto is popular and it is free.

Other things happening on the same afternoon last year, off the main programme: a music afternoon at St John the Baptist from 1pm to 4.30pm followed by a community carol service at 4.30pm, the Only Fools band at the Kings Head from 2pm to 4pm, and Barnet Museum open.

The Spires ran three separate festive days of its own last December, all 11am to 3pm: free candy canes on fayre day itself, then Winter Wonderland with two Ice Princesses on the two Saturdays after, plus a trail with a £100 prize. Its 2026 dates have not been announced.

What is still to be confirmed

• the programme and the stall list. The Bull is asking for stallholders and performers through its own page each year, and general enquiries go to info@thebulltheatre.com. Expect the line-up in November.
• the road closure. Stalls line the High Street and the mayor cuts a ribbon across it, so the day needs a traffic order, and none has been advertised. We read every current traffic notice published for Barnet postcodes on the Public Notice Portal on 3 September and none of them covers the fayre. Expect it much nearer the day.
• December parking rules. See below, because this one has caught people out.

Parking, and the December trap

The fayre falls on a Sunday, which normally means free parking in the council car parks around the High Street. Moxon Street, the car park directly behind The Bull, charges Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6.30pm, with the first hour free inside those hours. Stapylton Road is the cheapest by the hour once you are paying, at £1.69, and Church Hill Road in East Barnet is free all day, every day. The full list is on our parking in Barnet page.

The trap is that the council has changed its December rules before. In 2023 the Barnet Society reported that the council’s website said charges would apply on the four Sundays in December, including fayre day, reversing what shopkeepers said had always been free Sunday parking in the three High Barnet car parks, and that the customary free December Saturdays had been replaced with 50 per cent off. If you are driving in, check the signs on the day rather than assuming the Sunday rule holds.

The alternative is the Northern line. High Barnet station is at the top of the hill and The Bull is 400 metres from it, on the theatre’s own measure. For anything happening on the roads that week, see Barnet roadworks and travel.

The date, year by year

It has run in wind and drizzle in each of the last two years and gone ahead regardless. This page will be updated when the 2026 programme, the stall list and the road closure are published.