Pattaya International Fireworks Festival 2026: Two Nights Over the Bay, 27 and 28 November

On the last weekend of November, Pattaya moors a line of barges off its beach and hands them, one after another, to pyrotechnic teams from around the world. For two nights, Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November 2026, the whole three-kilometre bay becomes the stand, and it costs nothing to be there.

The Pattaya International Fireworks Festival is the biggest free fireworks event in Thailand and the easiest to get wrong: hundreds of thousands of people arrive on the same afternoon, Beach Road closes, the last buses to Bangkok leave before the finale, and every terrace with a view sold its tables weeks ago. This guide covers the two nights, where to stand or sit, the closures and the parking, and how to get there and back. One honesty note first: Pattaya City had confirmed the dates but not the 2026 programme when we checked on 2 November. The teams, the exact show times and the traffic order usually appear in the fortnight before the festival; the timings below are the pattern of the last three editions, and we will update them when the city publishes.

What the Festival Is

The festival began in 2010 as a pyrotechnic competition, grew into the city’s biggest night of the year, skipped 2016 and 2017, and settled on the last weekend of November. Each foreign team, five or six of them in recent years, fires a display of 10 to 15 minutes from the barges, with Thailand usually opening the first night; the displays are spaced through the evening with concerts or a pause between them, and a food fair of several hundred stalls runs along the sand from the late afternoon. In 2022 the International Festivals and Events Association named it one of Asia’s three best ocean city festivals; in 2024 it won the association’s Pinnacle Award for its emergency planning, which tells you something about the crowd. In 2025 the edition was dedicated to the memory of Queen Sirikit, with the Royal Thai Navy orchestra and a khon performance in place of the pop concerts.

The Two Nights

From the morning

Parking bans along Beach Road, Central Pattaya Road and South Pattaya Road; traffic into the city builds from about 9 AM on both days.

Afternoon

Beach Road closes to traffic, from 3 or 4 PM in recent years, until after midnight. The sand in front of Central Pattaya is claimed by 3 PM. Free shuttles run from the outer car parks from about 4 PM.

From 5 PM

The food fair and the stage open along the beach.

About 7:30 PM

The first display. In 2025 the displays went at 7:30, 7:50, 8:10, 9:00 and 9:20 PM; in 2024 the last was at 10:05 PM. Each team fires for 10 to 15 minutes.

About 10:30 PM

The programme ends. Central Pattaya Road and Phettrakul Road run one way outbound; the queue out of the city lasts two to three hours.

Roads, Parking and Shuttles

The city’s plan has had the same shape for years and the 2026 order, due in mid-November, will follow it. Beach Road is closed to traffic from the afternoon until after midnight on both days, with no parking along it or along Central Pattaya Road, South Pattaya Road and the numbered sois from the early morning; Second Road loses a lane to no-parking in the afternoon; several sois behind the beach close in the evening; and after the last display Central Pattaya Road runs one way towards Sukhumvit and Phettrakul Road one way towards North Pattaya.

Parking is at the malls and temples away from the beach. In 2025 the zones were Terminal 21, the Lotus stores in North and South Pattaya, Central Marina, Central Pattaya, Big C Central and Big C South, Harbor Mall, Wat Chai Mongkhon, Wat Nong Yai, City Hall and the Bali Hai pier car park, with free shuttles to the beach from Wat Nong Yai and Lotus South from 4 PM to midnight. The baht buses along Second Road run late, ten baht a ride, and are the quickest way back to a hotel in Naklua or Jomtien when the roads are still locked.

If you are staying in Pattaya, the simplest plan is a hotel within walking distance of the beach and no car at all.

Getting There From Bangkok, and Back

Buses leave Ekkamai, the Eastern Bus Terminal on Sukhumvit, every 20 to 60 minutes from early morning, about ฿130 to ฿150 and two to two and a half hours to North Pattaya; buses and minivans also leave from Mo Chit, and minivans from Ekkamai. A taxi or a Grab from the city is ฿1,500 to ฿2,000 and an hour and 40 minutes on a quiet day; on the festival Friday allow an hour more. Leave Bangkok by late morning.

Coming back is the problem. The last public buses to Ekkamai leave Pattaya at about 9:30 to 10 PM, which is before the last display, and the minivans stop earlier still. So either book a car for the return in advance, ฿1,500 to ฿2,500 depending on the car, and expect to leave at midnight, or stay the night. Pattaya’s beach hotels reported 99 percent occupancy a month before the 2025 festival and rates double the norm; book early, and consider Jomtien or Naklua, both a short baht-bus ride away, if the beach is full.

The Rest of the Season

The fireworks fall three nights after Loy Krathong, so a long weekend can take in both: krathongs on the Chao Phraya on Tuesday the 24th, Pattaya on the Friday. In Bangkok, Vijit Chao Phraya lights the river until 13 December. The week after Pattaya, Wonderfruit opens in the fields 20 minutes inland from the same beach, 3 to 7 December, and Tomorrowland follows in the same province from 11 to 13 December.

How to Enjoy It, and Leave Everyone Else To

The beach is the city’s living room for two nights. Take your rubbish with you (the stalls hand out bags), keep off the roped exclusion zone at the water’s edge, leave the drones at home, and do not set off your own fireworks: the city fines it and the crowd is too dense. If you are travelling with small children, the north end and the terraces are kinder than the centre, and ear protection helps; the displays are loud and the bass carries across the water.