Sunderland New Year’s Eve Fireworks: Keel Square Double Display & Epic Home Alternatives

If you’ve just searched “Sunderland NYE fireworks”, “Sunderland council New Year’s Eve fireworks Keel Square” or “what time are the Sunderland New Year fireworks?” looking for details of this year's event – good news: the city is going big.

On Wednesday 31st December 2025, Sunderland City Council is putting on a free, double New Year’s Eve fireworks spectacular in and around Keel Square in the city centre.

There will be:

• A 6:30pm family fireworks display

• A full midnight fireworks finale to welcome in 2026

Both are part of a wider New Year’s Eve Firework Spectacular with live music, tribute acts, DJs, a community parade, funfair rides, food, drink and a city-centre party that runs from 3pm through to after midnight.

And if standing in a crowd in late December isn’t your idea of a good time, the same “early family show + midnight finale” format is perfect for a DIY Sunderland-style display at home using Epic Fireworks.

Sunderland’s NYE Double-Display: The Basics

Sunderland City Council has confirmed the key details for New Year’s Eve 2025–26.

Date: Wednesday 31st December 2025
Location: Keel Square and surrounding city-centre streets
Cost: Free – no tickets required

Timings:

• From 3pm – Family activities, children’s entertainment, tribute acts, food and drink

• 5:45pm – Community parade over the new Keel Crossing footbridge

• 6:30pm – Family Fireworks Display

• From 7pm – Live DJs, headline acts, more entertainment

• Midnight – Countdown and second fireworks display to ring in 2026

Best viewing spots for the fireworks:

• Keel Square

• Keel Edge

• St Mary’s Boulevard (which will be closed to traffic for the event)

The whole night is being programmed and funded by Sunderland City Council and Expo Sunderland, with support from local partners, as part of the city’s ambition to be a serious “city of events”.

On the technical side, the council has awarded the 2025/26 New Year’s Eve fireworks contract to Reaction Fireworks, a well-known professional display company – so you’re not watching somebody’s mate with a lighter; this is the proper, choreographed stuff.

Why Sunderland Has Gone All-In on New Year’s Eve

For years, Sunderland’s big winter draw was the Festival of Light in Roker Park and the seafront illuminations. That’s been paused in 2025 as the council shifts its winter budget to a refreshed programme, with the double New Year’s Eve fireworks as the centrepiece.

Following rave reviews of the fireworks that closed the Women’s Rugby World Cup celebrations in Keel Square in August, the council basically got told by residents: “That was brilliant. More of that, please.”

So instead of spreading resources thinly across lots of smaller events, Sunderland is:

• Scrapping Festival of Light for 2025,

• Focusing on one “bigger, brighter, more inclusive” New Year’s Eve celebration, with fireworks at its heart,

• Making it free, central, and open to everyone.

The result: a city-centre New Year’s Eve party that feels like a proper flagship event for the region.

What to Expect in Keel Square on New Year’s Eve

This isn’t just “turn up, look up, go home”. The programme around Keel Square is stacked.

Afternoon into Early Evening

From 3pm, the city centre becomes one big pre-party:

• Family activities and children’s entertainment

• Tribute acts including Harry Styles and Sabrina Carpenter impersonators, plus local performers like Northern Daughters and iStage

• Food stalls and bars around Keel Square and Keel Edge

• A funfair on High Street West open from midday right through to 12:30am

At 5:45pm, a community parade crosses the new Keel Crossing footbridge, linking both sides of the River Wear. It’s designed as a big, visual “Sunderland coming together” moment – community groups, performers, costumes, music, the lot.

By the time 6:30pm comes round, Keel Square and the surrounding streets are warmed up, the kids are hyped, and the first display is ready to go.

The 6:30pm Family Fireworks Display

The 6:30pm show is explicitly billed as family-friendly – a chance for anyone with little ones (or early bedtimes) to enjoy a big-city fireworks moment without staying out until midnight.

The council’s guidance is that the best viewing spots are Keel Square, Keel Edge and St Mary’s Boulevard, all of which are within a few steps of each other. During each display, the Keel Crossing footbridge will be closed to the public for safety, so you won’t be standing halfway across the Wear trying to peer over someone’s shoulder.

For families, it’s about as convenient as it gets:

• Central location, minutes from Metro, bus and rail links

• Hardstanding all round (no muddy fields)

• Food, drink and loos within easy reach

Watch the fireworks, grab a snack, head home or head on – no one’s trekking across a windswept seafront at bedtime.

The Late-Night Line-Up and Midnight Fireworks

If you’re sticking around, the evening only ramps up from there.

From around 7pm, the stage programme gets more grown-up, with:

• An ABBA tribute

• DJ sets from Michael Gray

• Ibiza in Symphony (live musicians plus dance classics)

• Lovely Laura & Ben Santiago, and

• Fleur East bringing full pop and party energy

Food vendors and bars dotted around Keel Square and Keel Edge see to the important business of keeping everyone fed and watered, while the fairground on High Street West stays open into the early hours.

Then, as the clock closes in on twelve, attention swings back to the countdown and the second fireworks display.

The midnight show is pitched as a high-impact, music-linked display – a proper “Midnight Moment” to ring in 2026.

Two full sets of fireworks in one night, both free, both in the heart of the city. Sunderland is clearly not messing about.

Why Some People Will Still Choose to Celebrate at Home

For all the appeal of a free double-display in the city centre, there are perfectly good reasons why some people will swerve the crowds and do their own thing.

Maybe there are young children in the mix who will happily enjoy a short show in the garden but aren’t built for several hours outdoors in December. Maybe there are pets who’d rather have their humans around when things start going bang. Maybe there are accessibility reasons that make busy city-centre streets, curbs and fairground queues more hassle than they’re worth.

Or maybe, just maybe, some people like their New Year’s Eve with guaranteed access to their own kettle, toilet and sofa. We totally get that and that doesn’t mean missing out on the fireworks.

Sunderland’s “two displays” format actually works brilliantly as a template for a home celebration and that’s where Epic Fireworks comes in.

Epic Fireworks: Sunderland-Style NYE, Without Leaving the House

For anyone planning a DIY New Year’s Eve display – in Sunderland, across the North East or anywhere else in the UK for that matter – having the right kit (and a bit of structure) is the difference between “token sparkler” and “actual display”.

Epic Fireworks is built for exactly this job.

• We're the UK’s biggest online fireworks supplier, based in South Yorkshire.

• We offer the country’s largest range of online fireworks, including single-ignition barrages (“cakes”), huge 1.3G rockets, compound cakes that behave like mini professional shows, fountains, mines, garden fireworks, quieter options and more.

• We offer “Half price or less” deals – our bulk buying direct from the factories lets us offer serious discounts compared to typical RRPs.

• Plus, get free nationwide delivery on orders over £295 (some remote areas excluded)

On the New Year front, Epic’s New Year Packs are designed around the same idea Sunderland is using: big, powerful single-ignition barrages that give you a full-blown display with minimal faff.

If you want to lean all the way in, there are also 1.3G DIY display kits built specifically to give maximum bang for your budget, complete with portfires and a firing guide so you know exactly what to light and when.

Building a Sunderland-Style Home Display

To mirror Sunderland’s double-show format, a lot of people use something like this:

1. “Family” display – early evening: Time it for 6pm, 6:30pm or 7pm, whatever suits your crowd. Use a small to mid-sized display pack or a selection of garden-friendly cakes and fountains that run for 5–10 minutes in total. Focus on colour and variety rather than sheer noise – especially in terraced streets or built-up areas.

2. Midnight display – main event: Choose one of Epic’s bigger New Year packs, or choose a selection of or larger compound cakes – these are the ones designed to fire a whole sequence from one fuse. Add a cluster of big rockets if your garden and safety distances allow it – Epic’s 1.3G rockets come with up to 200g of pyro payload each, so they really do punch above supermarket level. Keep the firing plan simple: maybe a warm-up cake five minutes before midnight, then a big compound at the stroke of twelve, with rockets staggered through the last couple of minutes.

Epic’s blog even has New Year display ideas under £200 guides for people who want a serious look without going wild on the spend.

Sunderland NYE 2025–26: City Centre or Back Garden?

So, where does that leave anyone planning New Year’s Eve in and around Sunderland?

For anyone who loves big communal moments, Sunderland’s New Year’s Eve Firework Spectacular is a brilliant way to bring in 2026.

For anyone who’d rather keep things closer to home – or who wants both the Keel Square buzz and a smaller, more personal display with family and friends – the structure Sunderland has gone for is ideal inspiration:

• Early family fireworks,

• Midnight fireworks,

• Split up the same way in the back garden, using Epic Fireworks to provide the booms.

Whether you end up shoulder-to-shoulder in Keel Square, wrapped up in a crowd watching Reaction Fireworks light up the sky, or in the garden lighting your own Epic barrages, the important bit is simple:

If Sunderland’s New Year’s Eve 2025–26 is going to go off with a bang, someone has to light the fuse.

Out in the city, that’s the council and their display team.

At home, that’s you – and Epic Fireworks will happily supply everything you need to say goodbye to 2025 in style.

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