Horgen's Turnip Lantern Parade: We Know Where It Ends, Not Where It Starts
✓ Checked at the source · as of 5 October 2026
For Horgen we know where the parade finishes, what there is to eat there and which streets it has used since 1958. We do not know when it sets off. This page therefore has a job no other has: state what is fixed, work out the rest — and mark the working-out as exactly that.
📅 Parade 2026 — when and where
Räbeliechtli-Umzug Horgen
calculated from the fixed ruleSaturday, 7 November 2026 — since 1958, every year on the first Saturday in November
- Organiser
- Pro Horgen
Route from Heubachstrasse via Zugerstrasse and Alte Landstrasse into the centre – unchanged since 1958.
Source: horgen.ch · checked on 5 October 2026
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📅 Visit-day check
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| Session | Run | Opening hours | Date set? |
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Calculated from the ConvivaPlus dataset — every row with its own source above.
🚋 Meeting point & transport with stop
The nearest stop is 88 metres away as the crow flies.
- Destination
- Dorfplatz Horgen
- Nearest stop
- Horgen, untere Mühle (BUS) — 88 m as the crow flies
Coordinates © swisstopo · Stops: opentransportdata.swiss (FOT)
📋 Good to know before you go
- Food and drink
- Heisse Wienerli und Semmeli für die Kinder auf dem Dorfplatz
✨ Highlights on site
What sets this parade apart from every other one is not in its date.
A rule is not a promise. This whole page hangs on that. «First Saturday in November» is so unambiguous that a pocket calculator will do: in 2026 it falls on 7 November, in 2027 on the 6th, in 2028 on the 4th. We could comfortably have put that date in the field and nobody would have noticed. We do not — because a rule describes what has been, and a date promises what will be. Only Pro Horgen can say the second, and for 2026 Pro Horgen has not said it yet.
What is fixed, though, is worth more than the missing date. The route runs from Heubachstrasse via Zugerstrasse and Alte Landstrasse into the centre — and has done unchanged since 1958. Sixty-eight years of the same path through a place that has become an agglomeration in the meantime. In the entire survey exactly two organisers name a founding year at all: Flawil since 1927, Horgen since 1958. The other twenty do not tell their story.
And then the quirk that makes Horgen unique in this vein: we know where the evening ends, but not where or when it begins. Published are the Dorfplatz as the destination and the hot sausages handed to the children there. Not published are the start time and assembly point. With most parades it is exactly the other way round — you know where to go, and the rest follows. First-time visitors here station themselves at the finish and wait for a procession that set off somewhere else.
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🎯 Practical tips for the evening
In Horgen the rule is there and the start is missing. Both have practical consequences.
- 188 m from the stopFrom the Horgen, untere Mühle stop it is 88 metres as the crow flies.
- 2Check the municipal site before you gohorgen.ch hosts Pro Horgen's page on the turnip lantern parade. Experience shows the date appears there at short notice – a look in the week beforehand replaces any estimate, ours included.
- 3Can't make the date? The nearest place with this event is Richterswil, 8 km away.
- 4If the rule holds, it will be busyOn the first Saturday in November this survey already counts 5 verified parades, 4 of them Zurich city neighbourhood parades. Horgen would be number 6 – and the only one of them on Lake Zurich. Nationwide, 17 of the 22 parades carry a verified date.
🗺️ Nearby parades
The ConvivaPlus turnip lantern survey lists 22 parades, 17 of them with a verified date; in the canton of Zurich there are 12. The verified season runs from 30 October 2026 to 14 November 2026. Horgen is not part of it: its date is calculated from the fixed rule, and in the whole survey that applies to just two entries — this one and Flawil.
The busiest evening of the season is 6 November 2026 with 5parades running at once. The first Saturday in November — Horgen's rule day — falls the day after and already carries 5 verified parades. So anyone betting on the rule is not planning a quiet evening but one of the two busiest of the season. That is not an argument against it: it is the reason to decide early rather than choosing between 6 processions on the afternoon itself.
More turnip lantern parades in the canton of Zurich
All of the canton of Zurich→❓ FAQ — answered
Answers from the verified dataset – no date is carried over from last year.
People also ask
Related questions from our magazine
That the organiser publishes a recurring date rule but no date for the current year. We then work out the day visibly and say that it is our calculation. In the entire survey this applies to two entries: Horgen and Flawil.
The survey lists 12 parades in the canton of Zurich; on the lake itself, Horgen and the Räbechilbi in Richterswil – the latter with a verified date and regarded as the world's largest turnip lantern parade. Wallisellen and the Zurich city districts lie in the north of the canton.
Because a route is more than a path: the police have to be able to close it, small children have to be able to walk it, residents have to be able to live with it, and it should pass where people actually live. Find one that does all four and you never change it again – in Horgen not since 1958.
The ConvivaPlus verdict
We recommend it anyway, and precisely because of what is missing here.
Freshness note: Rule, route, destination and refreshments come from horgen.ch, source read on 6 September 2026. 7 November 2026 is derived from the published rule and is NOT confirmed by the organiser. Start time and meeting point are not published – ask Pro Horgen before setting off.
Check the latest: ConvivaPlus Turnip Lantern Dataset 2026 – Horgen →
- ◆Two years in twenty-two entries: only Flawil (1927) and Horgen (1958) say at all how long their parade has existed. That is not an accident of research but a statement about the custom: most turnip lantern parades are carried by parents whose children will have outgrown them in three years — and a body that changes every few years keeps no archive.
- ◆Destination known, start unknown — that is the rarer gap: most organisers in this survey publish a meeting point and say nothing about the destination; a parade ends somewhere anyway. Horgen does it the other way round. For a local that is no problem; for everyone else it is the decisive information — and the reason this page names both, including the part that is missing.
How we check
Every date comes from the organiser's, the municipality's or the canton's own site — never from an aggregator, never copied over from last year. Next to each source is the date we last read it.
Where only a fixed rule is published, we work out the date and label it “calculated from the fixed rule”.
Something missing or changed? A note below is enough; we check it at the source.
ConvivaPlus Editor · Family & Day Trips
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Destination known, start unknown — that is the rarer gap: most organisers in this survey publish a meeting point and say nothing about the destination; a parade ends somewhere anyway.
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🏮 Turnip lantern parade · 5 October 2026