At one Bluff Santa Parade, Father Christmas swapped his sleigh for the Bluff Coastguard boat, as an ODT photograph of a previous parade showed. How he arrives this year is still under wraps, but the date is not: the parade is back on Sunday 6 December, and it is a milestone one.
Bluff Promotions said in a Facebook post that the 2026 parade, which sets off at 1pm, marks 10 years of its Santa Parade in the port town, and it is calling for entries to help mark the occasion. For a town of Bluff's size, a decade of floats, walkers and decorated vehicles rolling down the main street is a fair achievement, and one built on volunteers and local businesses.
That is why it matters. Southland's small-town parades only happen because groups, clubs and families sign up to take part, and Bluff Promotions has made a point of inviting just about anyone. When the ODT previewed the 2023 parade, the list of welcome entries ran from floats and performers to marchers, clubs, hot rods, motorbikes and cars, with prizes for the best floats and costumes, and a best-dressed Christmas window competition for local businesses alongside.
That year the parade began at the top end of Gore Street, State Highway 1, turned right into Palmer Street and right again into Barrow Street, before finishing at the Oyster Festival site, where the Christmas In The Bluff Gala Day followed. Bluff Promotions has not yet published a 2026 route on a public website, so anyone planning to watch should check its Facebook page closer to the day. Groups keen to enter can contact Bluff Promotions through the same page.
Looking further ahead, a much louder date has gone into the Invercargill diary. The Kiwi Steel Rodeo's Summer of Carnage Tour lists Invercargill on Saturday 6 March, the final stop on a run that also takes in Whanganui, Wellington, Blenheim and Dunedin. The ticket page opens with a promise of "an Epic Night of Destruction", and the line-up backs it up: car-crushing monster trucks, freestyle motocross, car and motorcycle stunts, a pyrotechnics display and a motorbike giveaway. Gates open at 4.30pm and the show starts at 6.30pm, and families are told to bring picnics, blankets and chairs and claim a spot beside the track.
The organisers bill the event as "all-Kiwi-owned", and their Eventbrite profile says "All partners have been performing shows around the country for over 10 years". The Invercargill ticket page does not yet name a venue, so that detail is one to watch for.
Before any of that, though, Santa has a date in Bluff, and whether he arrives by road or aboard the Coastguard boat, it will be the 10th time Bluff Promotions has put on the parade.
The Bluff Promotions Santa Parade is on Sunday 6 December at 1pm in Bluff. The Kiwi Steel Rodeo comes to Invercargill on Saturday 6 March 2027, with gates at 4.30pm; tickets are sold through Flicket.
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