The city’s annual winter solstice parade is taking a year off as it struggles with funding challenges.
Burning the Clocks will return in 2026 with the theme Magicada – inspired by a type of cicada, the Magicicada, which emerges every 13 to 17 years.
The charity which started the parade, Same Sky, says the cost of putting on the event soared 44 per cent from 2019 to more than £50,000 last year.
Its artistic director retired last year, which prompted the charity to pause Burning the Clocks – although its other events such as the Children’s Parade and Glow Wild at Wakehurst will continue without a break.
This year, a massive lantern to represent the Magicada theme will be displayed in the city centre on 21 December.
Jane McMorrow, Same Sky’s interim CEO said: “It was a tough but necessary decision to take a year off from running Burning the Clocks this year in order to focus our resources and allow time to strategically review and secure the long term future for Same Sky.
“We’re a small but powerful charity that has connected communities through shared art projects since we began in 1987 – but in recent years alongside many other small arts charities we’ve faced immense funding challenges.
“We have a tiny core team and each year we’ve only been able to stage the event thanks to every single person associated with the organisation, especially our artists and events team, going above and beyond.
“We also said goodbye to our artistic director this year – John Varah who retired after 34 years at Same Sky – which made this a good moment to review the organisation’s structure and ensure we are secure and fit for purpose to continue to make more positive community impact for many decades to come.”
The cost of the event includes not just making the lanterns, but also security and stewarding, personnel, equipment, pyrotechnics, and insurance, as well as funding school and community workshops and artistic contributions.
Income from supporters, participants, sponsors, and donors helped cover a third of the event’s cost last year, with the rest coming from organisations including Arts Council England, Hand Brew Co, The Boyne Family, and James Heath and Co.
In kind contributions were also made by Brighton Fringe, Brighton and Hove City Council, Brighton Winter Fayre, Brighton Dome and Festival, Moshimo, Infinity Co Op, The Chilli Pickle and Sea Lanes.
Shame, but it is not as much fun as it once was. LED lights are not the same as naked light and the bonfire at the end too sanitised now. It has lost it’s “pagan” feel and is now just another parade.
You could still have a bonfire of local political vanities 😊
Not quite sure what the point of it was in the first place. There was something a bit Wicker Man about it. But the LED lights were pretty naff in the end.
Burning the Clocks was created in 1994 by the community arts organisation Same Sky, during a period when Brighton didn’t have much in the way of inclusive winter celebrations. It was deliberately non-religious, designed to give everyone, regardless of background,d a way to mark the passing of the shortest day and symbolically let go of the old year.
The lanterns people carried weren’t just decorations. Traditionally, they were built from biodegradable materials and each one contained a personal message, hope, or reflection for the year ahead. The act of burning them on the beach was a modern ritual, a kind of collective catharsis and renewal rooted in solstice traditions that predate even Christianity. So yes, a bit “Wicker Man,” but intentionally so, minus the whole burning-people-in-giant-effigies bit.
The LED lights, by the way, came in as a compromise to make it safer and more accessible, especially in recent years with tighter budgets and stricter fire regs. Not quite as atmospheric, I agree, but a practical choice.
It’s always been more about community expression and shared experience than flashy visuals. Hope that clears up what the point of it was.
The Kemptown Carnival, the Spiegeltent and now this. Meanwhile we rent public space for 2-3x less than any other city to a small circle of connected companies who make millions from generic raves, tribute bands and washed up has-beens. If we charged a proper commercial rate for private companies, we could subsidise the things that make Brighton great. Or has the council decided we are now the new Blackpool? And are we concerned about fire because the promotors dump so much oil on the beach every year and never clean it up?
Lev, this is the third (or fourth) time you’ve recycled this same conspiracy-laced argument, regardless of what the actual article is about.
The event fee claims you keep repeating are not based on any publicly verifiable data, and as already explained: Brighton & Hove is one of the few cities that actually publishes its event rates transparently. Most others don’t, so your “2–3x cheaper” comparison is unverifiable at best and disingenuous at worst. As for the repeated accusations about a “small circle” profiting, again, zero evidence. You imply corruption, yet you never present facts.
You could be debating how to protect and fund events like Burning the Clocks, not hijacking every comment thread to relitigate your personal war with the council.