Räbechilbi Richterswil: The World's Largest Turnip Lantern Parade — and the Only One You Pay For
✓ Checked at the source · as of 11 September 2026
Twenty-one of the recorded turnip lantern parades cost nothing. You turn up, you walk, you go home. In Richterswil there is a price tag in front of the evening: ten francs, cash only, and wearing the badge is compulsory. That is not a souvenir stall. It is the ticket to the largest turnip lantern parade in the world.
📅 Parade 2026 — when and where
A single Saturday – miss it and you wait a year.
Räbechilbi Richterswil
✓Saturday, 14 November 2026 · 1 day
- Organiser
- Arbeitsgruppe Räbechilbi, Verkehrs- und Verschönerungsverein Richterswil
Regarded as the world's largest turnip-lantern parade: around 40 floats, lasting about an hour.
Source: vvrs.ch · checked on 11 September 2026
🕐 Start time and running order
Where there are two groups, each start is listed separately — an average would be wrong for both.
Start: 18:00
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📅 Visit-day check
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| Session | Run | Opening hours | Date set? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Räbechilbi Richterswil | Sat 14 Nov | 18:00 | confirmed |
Calculated from the ConvivaPlus dataset — every row with its own source above.
📋 Good to know before you go
- Preparation
- Räbenverkauf: Sa 31. Oktober 2026, 9–16 Uhr.
- From 3 p.m. there are market stalls, open-air concerts and attractions in the old village centre.
- Come by S2 or S8 – the route runs right beside Richterswil station, and there is no parking.
- The festival badge at CHF 10.– or the plaque at CHF 15.– is compulsory – wearing it is required, sold for cash only.
✨ Highlights on site
What sets this parade apart from every other one is not in its date.
The Guinness Book of Records listed the Räbechilbi in 2000 as the largest turnip lantern parade in the world. The Zurich transport authority still describes it that way, and around forty floats move through the old village centre for a good hour. That is the figure you read everywhere. The two figures you read almost nowhere change the evening far more.
The first is ten. In the entire ConvivaPlus survey, Richterswil is the only parade where taking part costs money: festival badge CHF 10.– or plaque CHF 15.–, and they are compulsory to wear, not optional to buy. They are sold for cash. For comparison: in Baden the organiser states explicitly that «taking part in the parade is free» — the seven francs there buy you a turnip to carve, not a place in the procession. Arrive in Richterswil with a card and no coins and you have a problem you simply cannot have in Horgen or Wallisellen.
The second is fifteen. The fair starts at 15:00, the parade at 18:00, and it ends at 21:00. Read «turnip lantern parade Richterswil», turn up at the station at 17:50, and you have missed three hours of market stalls, open-air concerts and attractions, arriving in a village that has been full for hours. In every other entry in this survey the parade is the event. Here it is the closing act.
Ten francs for a compulsory badge – what do you think?
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🎯 Practical tips for the evening
Three things decide the Richterswil evening — and two of them exist at no other parade.
- 1Late in the seasonA date for late deciders: 16 of the season's 17 events have already started before.
- 2Come in the afternoon, not in the eveningFrom 15:00 market stalls, open-air concerts and attractions fill the old village centre; the parade only sets off at 18:00 and lasts about an hour. Take the whole day and you pay the same badge for six hours instead of one.
- 3By S2 or S8 — there is no parkingThe organiser says it plainly: «Travel by public transport – no parking spaces are available.» The route runs right beside Richterswil station. That makes this perhaps the easiest arrival of the whole season – as long as you leave the car at home.
- 4Carving your own turnip: 31 OctoberThe turnip sale takes place on Saturday, 31 October 2026, from 9:00 to 16:00 – two weeks before the parade. If you want to carry your own turnip, pencil in that Saturday; one hollowed out in early November will not survive until the 14th.
📊 Season comparison with nearby villages
Where this parade sits in the season — and which neighbouring village walks on the same evening.
Each bar is a documented evening. Dark = this parade, light = the nearest ones. A parade lasts an hour and often falls on the same evening as another — read only a date and you miss that the next village sets off at the same minute.
- RichterswilRäbechilbi Richterswil
🗺️ Nearby parades
Richterswil closes the season: the ConvivaPlus survey lists 22 parades, 17 of them with a verified date, and this is the last of those — the season ends on 14 November 2026, having begun on 30 October 2026. In the canton of Zurich, 12 parades are recorded.
On 14 November 2026 not a single other parade in the dataset sets off. The busiest evening, 6 November 2026 with 5 simultaneous parades, falls a week earlier. That is not chance but a rule: the organiser fixes the Räbechilbi on the second Saturday in November. Together with Albisrieden, Richterswil is one of only two entries in the survey where a rule and a verified date stand side by side. In the other six entries carrying a rule, that field holds a rule or a note — but no date for 2026.
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
Of the 22 recorded parades, exactly one: Richterswil, through its compulsory festival badge. All the others are free – occasionally you pay for a turnip to carve or for food vouchers, but never for walking in the procession.
A turnip lantern parade is the procession itself, usually an hour. A «Chilbi» is a fair with stalls, music and attractions – in Richterswil from 15:00 to 21:00, with the parade as its high point at 18:00. The name therefore tells you to plan an afternoon, not just an evening.
According to the published rule, always on the second Saturday in November – so 13 November 2027 and 11 November 2028. That is our derivation from the organiser's rule, not a date confirmed by them; for the current year, 14 November 2026 is verified.
The ConvivaPlus verdict
If you want to see exactly one turnip lantern event this season, this is it — and we say so this bluntly with some reluctance, because it does an injustice to the small neighbourhood parades, which achieve something else entirely.
Two caveats that appear on no poster. First, it costs: ten francs per person, in cash, compulsory. For a family that is an amount no other parade in this survey demands. Second, it is not an evening but a day — between 15:00 and 21:00 the parade lasts one hour. Plan only that hour and you pay the full price for the smallest part.
Freshness note: Date, start time, number of floats, fair hours and badge prices were re-read on 11 September 2026 at vvrs.ch and at the Zurich transport authority. The title «world's largest» comes from the Guinness Book of Records 2000 and is carried forward by the ZVV – there is no continuously maintained world ranking of turnip lantern parades.
Check the latest: ConvivaPlus Turnip Lantern Dataset 2026 – Richterswil →
- ◆The badge is the real story: what is remarkable is not the price but that it is the only one. 22recorded parades, twenty-one times no till — and once an obligation to wear. Anyone who wants to understand why a custom becomes a festival with a budget in one place and stays a parents' evening in twenty others will find the difference precisely here.
- ◆The rule outranks the date: Richterswil is one of only two entries in this survey where a rule and a verified date stand side by side — «the second Saturday in November» plus the confirmed 14 November 2026. In practice that means you can put this evening in your calendar as a repeat and never search for it again. Six further entries carry only the rule, and that is a different thing from a date.
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.
Something missing or changed? A note below is enough; we check it at the source.
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🏮 Turnip lantern parade · 11 September 2026