Newport Dunes Lights the Bay Every Night. The Festival Around It Keeps a Shorter Schedule.
November 12, 2026
November 12, 2026
On the evening after Thanksgiving, more than fifty lit holiday trees and decorations will start floating on the flat water of the Newport Dunes lagoon at 1131 Back Bay Drive. They will be lit again the next night, and every night after that through Sunday, Jan. 3, 2027, rain or shine. This is the 36th Lighting of the Bay.
The fire dancers, the Igloo Bar, the inflatables and Santa follow a much shorter schedule. Newport Dunes runs two holiday events on the same water: a nightly display with decades behind it, and a newer festival that opens only four evenings a week. If you live here, the night you pick decides the visit you get.
The floating display is the old tradition. In November 2024, the Newport Beach Independent previewed the 34th Lighting of the Bay and called the Fire & Lights Festival a new Thursday-through-Sunday companion event. A year later, the Independent's 2025 preview described the 35th show as more than fifty floating, lighted trees, lit nightly at dusk, with fire dancers and Santa photos on weekends.
The 2026 season keeps the same setup. Here are the official dates from Newport Dunes:
Counting the days, the lights run all 38 nights from Nov. 27 to Jan. 3. The festival gets 20 evenings. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve both land on Thursdays this year and Christmas Day on a Friday, so all three closures take nights the festival would otherwise be open. Christmas week has two festival nights, and New Year's week has three.
What you get depends on the evening. Fire dancing, Santa and the festival hours each run on their own schedule, and they line up only on certain nights.
| Night | Floating lights | Festival grounds, 4 to 9 p.m. | Wildfire Arts Collective fire dancers | Santa, free photos |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday to Wednesday | Lit at dusk | Closed | No | No |
| Thursday | Lit at dusk | Open | No | No |
| Friday | Lit at dusk | Open | 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., with a different plan on opening night | Opening night only |
| Saturday | Lit at dusk | Open | 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. | 5 to 8 p.m. through Christmas |
| Sunday | Lit at dusk | Open | No | No |
Each fire-dancer show runs about 10 minutes, with the lit bay behind the performers. Santa visits on Saturdays through Christmas, which this season means Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 12 and 19. He also appears on opening night. The resort's opening-night plan for Friday, Nov. 27 has Santa lighting the bay around 6 p.m., along with music, inflatables, fire pits, food and a movie, and it lists a fire performance at 5:45 p.m. in place of the usual Friday times. Newport Dunes calls that lineup a potential schedule that may change.
The best night for small children is Saturday. That's the only regular night with Santa, fire dancing and the inflatables all running. The inflatables are the Toboggan Tunnel, the Gingerbread Slide and Snowzilla, a 40-foot slide. They cost extra, socks are required, and riders under 30 inches need an adult with them. Saturday is also the fullest night on the calendar.
Monday through Wednesday you get only the lights: no stage, no concessions and no festival crowd. The fifty-plus floating trees are lit the same as on a Saturday. The resort's 2025 holiday blog describes viewing from shore with beach seating and fire pits.
Thursday falls in between. The festival grounds are open, the Igloo Bar is serving, and there is no fire dancing or Santa. During the busiest week of December, Thursday matters even more. The 118th Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade runs Dec. 16 to 20, starting around 6:30 p.m. each night, so the Dunes festival weekend that week shares its evenings with the harbor.
The festival schedule affects what you can eat, too. The Back Bay Bistro is no longer a restaurant. Newport Dunes now uses it only as a private event space. The only regular restaurant on the property is Moe B's Munchies, the beachfront bar and grill. Its current posted hours are:
Moe B's is closed Monday through Thursday. On Sundays it closes at 5 p.m., before most of the festival evening has started. Its fall specials are a $15 classic tuna melt, a $13 seafood chowder and a $14 fall harvest salad, served through autumn.
On festival evenings, the concessions fill the dinner slot. The resort lists hot cocoa, hot cider, coffee, soda, beer, wine and cocktails each night, plus soup, tamales and s'mores kits for the fire pits. The Igloo Bar also serves apple cider and canned cocktails. The fire pits are free.
From Monday through Wednesday, neither Moe B's nor the festival concessions are open, so eat before you come. On Thursdays, the festival concessions and the Igloo Bar are the food on site. On Fridays and Saturdays, you can eat at Moe B's before 7 p.m. and stay for the fire dancers at 7:30. On Sundays, plan on the concessions.
This year the Dunes also has a Christmas tree lot that local families used to find farther inland. Santa's Garden has closed its Irvine and La Habra lots and moved everything to Newport Dunes. To find it, turn in from Back Bay Drive and look to the right of the resort's guard shack, then follow the signs.
Newport Dunes lists the lot as opening Monday, Nov. 23, four days before the lights come on. The posted hours are:
The trees come from Oregon: Noble, Nordmann, Grand and Douglas firs. The lot also sells wreaths and garlands and offers flocking, trimming, loading and local delivery. The resort says the lot gets new trees every week. The lot stays open until 9 p.m. or later every night, including the Monday through Wednesday nights when the festival is closed. Starting Nov. 27, you can pick up a tree on a Tuesday evening and see the floating lights before you leave.
The festival is free to enter, but parking at the Dunes is not. The rates are tiered:
Parking matters most on weeknights. Walking down to the water, watching the lights and walking back can fit in the free half hour. A festival night with both fire-dancer shows, 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., takes more than two hours, so plan on the $20 rate. A Saturday with Santa photos at 5 p.m. and the second fire show at 7:30 lands at about the same total.
Weather affects the festival but not the lights. The inflatables, performances and concessions can close in bad weather, and the floating display stays lit either way. You can check conditions on the day by calling the resort at (949) 729-3863.
If you live on the Back Bay side of town, you know how quiet the water is most of the year. For 38 nights it's lit up. Kent Martin Group follows these Newport Beach traditions closely, along with the homes near them. If a December evening at the Dunes has you wondering what your own Back Bay home would bring, ask us for a free home valuation and we'll walk you through the numbers with care.
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