Monthly Footfall Overview: October 2026

Halloween and half term holidays positively impact footfall across the week of 25th October.

This October, Victoria Street saw a 16% decrease in footfall compared with September but remained 71% higher than October 2025, with daily visits averaging 11,022. Broadmead recorded a 17% decrease compared with September, with Saturdays remaining the busiest days and footfall peaking during the week commencing 25th October with 279,749 visits, likely influenced by Halloween and half term holidays.

Victoria Street footfall is powered through Bristol BID’s investment in Micro Location Insights. An O2/Virgin Media sensor installed on Victoria Street provides valuable data that helps us understand footfall patterns and trends across the city.

We also capture data through two sensors in Broadmead, installed on Broadmead East and the corner of Broadmead West and Union Street (95 Broadmead). These sensors measure passing footfall by combining AI-powered algorithms with existing camera networks.

VICTORIA STREET*

OVERALL TRENDS

Overall trends

*Please note, O2’s Mobile network received an outage near Victoria Street’s sensor between 18th and 20th October (12am-6pm), therefore, total footfall for October 2026 was negatively impacted.

Overall, there was a 16% decrease in footfall from September (with the data impacted by 3 days of outage) but a 71% increase from October 2025. The daily average visitor number was 11,022, down from 12,717 in September, but up from 5936 the previous year.

Key trends included:

Peak footfall days: The busiest day for footfall was Saturday 31st October, Halloween, with 16,855 visits, compared to 8886 on October 7th 2025, the highest day of the same month that year.

VISITOR DEMOGRAPHICS & BEHAVIOUR

17% of visitors were between the ages of 18-24, as compared to 14% the previous month.
17% of visitors were between the ages of 55-64, as compared to 15% the previous month.
46% of visitors were female, and 54% were male.
The most popular time to visit Victoria Street was Thursdays at 5pm.
The average dwell time was 36 minutes.

SPENDING POWER & TRAVEL PATTERNS

BS1 brought the highest number of visitors, followed by BS3 and BS4.
60% of visitors were from BS postcodes, whilst 5% were from BA postcodes and 3% from GL post codes.

BROADMEAD

OVERALL TRENDS

The average daily footfall for Broadmead is divided between two sites: Broadmead East and 95 Broadmead.

In October, total footfall was 17% lower than in September and 3% lower than October 2025. Broadmead East accounted for 79% of total footfall, while 95 Broadmead accounted for 21%. This is consistent with year on year trends where on average, the footfall is always lower in October than in September.

Key trends included:

Saturday impact: Saturdays were the highest days for footfall across both sites, with Saturday 31st October the busiest, followed by Saturday 10th.
Halloween and half term impact: The week commencing the 25th reported the highest footfall for the year which totalled 279,749 visits, a 19% increase from September’s highest week. This also coincides with Saturday 31st October becoming the busiest day for Broadmead with over 64,738 visits, a 31% increase from the previous peak footfall date for the year, which was Saturday 31st January at 49,253.

VISITOR DEMOGRAPHICS & BEHAVIOUR

The most popular time to visit Broadmead was Saturday 31st between 1-3pm, where average footfall was 7156.
Other dates to highlight with higher-than-average footfall were 10th, 29TH 30th October 2026 where average footfall was 43,757.

Our Footfall & Insights pages are updated weekly with the latest footfall data. Please refer to our Reports & Resources section for a snapshot overview of footfall in our Monthly Visitor Reports and an overview of spend behaviours in our Quarterly Spend Reports.

The expanded footfall data can be viewed through our online dashboard for more effective and informed decision making. Please get in touch if you would like more information.