Battersea Power Station Christmas: Santa's Workshop Booking

Battersea Power Station’s Christmas season runs from Thursday 5 November 2026 to Sunday 3 January 2027. The power station published its programme on 19 October. The new attraction is Santa’s Workshop, a grotto trail through the building, from 27 November to 24 December.

Updated 2 November: Santa’s Workshop is now booking. The power station’s event page links to Immersive Octopus’s ticket page, where the session times and prices are shown.

Updated 26 October: the power station has published the Curated Makers Christmas Market’s hours: Monday to Saturday 11am to 8pm, Sundays 11am to 6pm, free entry. Santa’s Workshop still has no booking page.

Updated 22 October: rewritten from the power station’s 2026 announcement. Last year’s programme, which this page carried until today, has been removed.

The quick answer

• Season: 5 November 2026 to 3 January 2027.
• Santa’s Workshop: 27 November to 24 December, prices from £16.50.
• Ice skating: Glide opens Friday 6 November and runs to 3 January.
• Santa’s abseil: Sunday 22 November, with a dance party in Malaysia Square first.
• The Nutcracker: performances by London Children’s Ballet at 12pm, 2pm and 3pm on 5 and 13 December.
• Chimney Lift at Christmas: closed Christmas Day, 10am to 4.30pm on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, 10am to 8pm from 26 to 30 December.

What is on this Christmas

The dates below all come from the power station’s announcement of 19 October 2026 and its Christmas page.

Santa’s Workshop is new this year. Families move between rooms set up across the power station, including a Post Room and a Toy Workshop, solving puzzles to help the elves. It ends with a visit to Santa. The power station said tickets would go on sale from mid-October, priced from £16.50. Its event page went up at the end of October and links to the booking page run by Immersive Octopus; session times and prices appear only there. The borough’s other two grottos, at Southside and Battersea Arts Centre, are compared on our Santa’s grottos in Wandsworth page.

The decorations include a 40ft tree in Malaysia Square with more than 1,000 baubles, giant baubles on the riverside piazza and a trail of giant candy canes along Electric Boulevard. Inside, Turbine Hall A has four Art Deco style chandeliers. Turbine Hall B gets gold and red baubles and a star projection.

The markets. The Curated Makers Christmas Market runs from Saturday 5 to Tuesday 22 December, inside the Riverside Walk entrance on the Ground and Upper Ground floors. It opens 11am to 8pm Monday to Saturday and 11am to 6pm on Sundays, entry is free and dogs are welcome. There are 24 makers at each market, and the line-up changes every few days: jewellery, ceramics, artwork, candles, textiles and decorations, according to the listing. A second market, Your Brand, Your Story, sits in the South Atrium; the announcement gives no dates for it. The Winter Warmers huts sell chimney cakes, Yorkshire pudding wraps, mulled wine and hot chocolate.

The Nutcracker performances are part of the power station’s year-long “A Station of Stories” programme for the National Year of Reading. The announcement does not say whether they need a ticket.

Glide, Ramses and the Chimney Lift

Glide at Battersea Power Station. The power station’s Glide event page gives 6 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, with three interconnecting rinks and the 200-metre skate trail by the river, The Glass House bar for skaters and non-skaters, vintage fairground rides and food stalls. Session lengths, the family ticket rules, the accessible skate dates and the Christmas Day closure are all on our Battersea Power Station ice rink page.

Ramses and the Pharaoh’s Gold. The Egyptian exhibition at NEON, 2 Circus Road East, SW11 8DQ, runs until 1 January 2027, according to the power station’s listing. It has more than 180 artefacts including the cedar coffin of Ramses II, is recommended for ages five and up, and most visitors spend 60 to 75 minutes inside. NEON is not in the main power station building, so head for Circus Road East.

The Chimney Lift. The 109-metre ride up the north-west chimney has published its hours to the end of 2026 on its own opening hours page:

The closing time is the last ascent. Hours for 2027 are “to be announced in the coming weeks”. On Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November, the nights of the Battersea Park fireworks, the lift closes early to standard tickets and runs a separate special event from 8pm and 7pm, for special event ticket holders only.

The ticket page lists entry from £16 online against a standard adult (16+) price of £24, “Anytime” tickets from £24, and Early or Late Riser tickets with a drink from £19. Booking ahead saves up to 30%, with no booking fee.

The chimney projection

In December 2025 Apple, whose UK headquarters is in the building, projected 24 competition-winning iPad Christmas trees onto the chimneys and wash towers, according to the power station’s release. The 2026 announcement mentions no projection.

One market that has moved

Salad Days, whose Christmas market ran at the power station over three weekends in 2025, is not listed there this year. Its own market dates page shows its 2026 Christmas markets at Corner Corner in Canada Water (24 and 25 October, 5 and 6 December) and The Ministry at London Bridge (7 and 8 November, over-18s only), and nothing at Battersea. The power station may still announce other markets; for the borough’s town-centre Christmas markets and switch-ons, see Wandsworth Christmas lights switch-on.

Getting there

Battersea Power Station has its own Northern line station. Trains, buses and river boats for the ice rink are covered on our ice rink page; for engineering works and reduced services between Christmas and New Year see Wandsworth Christmas travel, and for local works Wandsworth roadworks and travel.

Still to be confirmed

• Santa’s Workshop: session times and what the £16.50 price covers are shown only in the booking system.
• November 2026: Christmas trading hours for the shops, and any projection on the chimneys.