New Year's Eve at The Forks 2026: Fireworks and Skating

New Year's Eve at The Forks falls on Thursday, December 31, 2026. Entry is free, as it has been every year the site has run the night, and the programming is outdoors on the plaza and at the CN Stage with the market open behind it. One thing decides how you plan the evening more than anything else: in past years the fireworks have gone up at 8 p.m., not at midnight, with a countdown for children ahead of them. What follows is one way through the night, hour by hour, and what each choice costs you.

3:45 p.m., before the light goes

The sun sets in Winnipeg at 4:37 p.m. on December 31. Arriving while there is still light in the sky buys you the easy version of everything: a parking space in the lots off Israel Asper Way, and a walk to the market doors without weaving through anyone. The cost is real, though. You are committing to roughly four hours outdoors before the fireworks, in the coldest week of the Winnipeg year, and small children will not last that long without a warm-up building in the plan.

The alternative is to arrive around seven, park further out, and take whatever ground is left near the stage. Plenty of people do. It works better for teenagers than for toddlers.

4:30 p.m., skates before supper

The Arctic Glacier Winter Park opens for the Christmas break in most years, so the rinks are usually running by New Year's Eve even when the river is not. Rentals are in The Forks Market Atrium, beside the changing area, at $8 for adults and $4 for children and seniors; bring your own and you skip the counter. Our guide to the winter park covers which rink to pick, but the short version on a windy night is the Canopy Rink, because it is covered and the CN Stage Rink is not.

Skating first means a quiet rental desk and an hour on the ice before the crowd arrives. It also means you spend the rest of the evening in damp mitts. If anyone in the group runs cold, do the skating after the fireworks instead and accept the queue.

6 p.m., eat while there is still room

The Forks Market food hall is the warm building at the centre of all this, and it is also where everyone goes when the wind picks up. From about seven onward the tables upstairs are gone. Eating at six costs you an hour of the outdoor programming and buys you a seat and a washroom without a line. Vendors set their own hours on December 31 and several close early, so check the market's board when you come in rather than planning around a particular counter.

8 p.m., the fireworks

The display is fired over the river and timed to a countdown at the CN Stage, which is the outdoor stage on the plaza side. Standing close to the stage puts you in the middle of the countdown and the music. Standing further back, up by the Esplanade Riel approach or along the riverbank path, gives you a cleaner view of the shells and a much shorter walk out afterwards. You cannot have both. With children, the stage; with a camera, the bank.

Dress for standing still rather than for walking. Twenty minutes stationary at minus twenty is a different proposition from twenty minutes of skating, and the open ground between the market and the river carries wind off both channels.

After 8 p.m., stay or go

A large share of the crowd leaves within half an hour of the fireworks, which is the quietest the site gets all evening and the best window for a second skate. Whether anything is scheduled at midnight varies by year; some years have added a second display, some have not, and The Forks posts the night's running order in December. If midnight at The Forks is the reason you are coming, confirm it before you build the evening around it.

New Year's Day is the easier half of the holiday here. The site has run free family programming on January 1 from the morning through the evening in recent years, indoors and out, and the plaza on a Friday morning is a different place from the plaza on Thursday night.

Getting home after midnight

Winnipeg Transit has run free service on New Year's Eve every year since 2011, sponsored by Manitoba Public Insurance. In recent years the free window has started at 7 p.m. and run to the end of service on all regular and Transit Plus routes, with the last buses leaving downtown around 1:30 a.m. and On-Request zones running to roughly 2 a.m. The city confirms the hours in a release each December, usually a week or so before. If you are travelling outside the free window, the 2026 fare is $3.45 in cash or $3.10 on peggo e-cash, and drivers carry no change.

The 38 Salter serves The Forks seven days a week, and the Main Street stops outside Union Station leave a short walk to the market doors. Rideshare pricing on this one night is the worst of the year, and the pickup zone is a walk from the plaza anyway. Walking is the option people forget: St. Boniface is across the Esplanade Riel footbridge, ten minutes on foot, and Broadway is about twenty minutes south on Main.

Where to stay for New Year's Eve at The Forks

Our three-bedroom home is in Crescentwood, just off Corydon Avenue, about four kilometres southwest of The Forks. By car that is roughly ten minutes on a night with no traffic to speak of before eight and a slow crawl out of the lots after. By bus it is the D19 Corydon downtown to the Kennedy Street terminal, then about twenty minutes southeast on foot, or a transfer if the wind has turned. The practical reason to stay this close on December 31 is that you can come home between the skating and the fireworks, dry out, and go back.

The week between Christmas and New Year is the hardest week of the winter to find a room in Winnipeg, and it books months out. Our Airbnb listing shows what is open over the holidays.