Candle dipping in Aarau: fifty years, one association, one purpose

Fifty editions means: anyone taking their grandchildren to the Markthalle today may have been there as a child themselves.

And then a piece of honesty we will not spare ourselves: at the time of checking, the opening line on the organiser's site still carried a date from last year. That does NOT mean the run is wrong — the published 2026 run and the recurring weekday hours are unaffected. It means exactly one thing: for the opening Friday a phone call is worth it. We name the field affected rather than dismissing everything or believing everything.

Aarau opens right into the busiest stretch of the season: on the first dipping day 22 other sessions are already running in the rest of Switzerland, and after it only 13 start anywhere in the country. If you are late in Aargau, this is one of the last addresses — and, at 17 days, one of the longest.

The canton of Aargau holds 3 candle-dipping sessions in our dataset: besides Aarau also Baden and Lenzburg. The first documented day in the canton is 18 November 2026 — Aarau is therefore the last of the three to start and runs the longest.

The calendar holds 58 entries, 47 of them with a documented date, from 19 cantons. The densest day of the season is 2 December 2026 with 26 wax pots open at once; on opening day at the Markthalle, 22 other sessions are running outside the municipality.