Press Play on Christmas: everything You Need To Know ahead of Carnaby Street's Christmas Lights switch-on. October 29, 2026 With just a week to go until Carnaby Street switches on its 2026 Christmas lights, here is everything you need to know about this not-to-be-missed evening in Soho on Wednesday 4 November. Everything You Need To Know Guide: Carnaby Street Christmas Lights Switch On 2026 The switch-on is open to everyone to attend, with an optional free Switch-On Ticket providing access to a complimentary festive cocktail for the first 1,000 ticket holders and exclusive shopping and dining offers on the night. To register for a FREE ticket for the light switch on for 'Press Play on Christmas' on Wednesday 4th November, please visit: https://www.thisissoho.co.uk/sign-up-to-the-christmas-lights-switch-on/ Entertainment and live experiences Roaming music performances: From 4.30pm, enjoy a soundtrack of 90s classics and much-loved Christmas hits as musical performances bring festive energy to the surrounding streets. The Christmas lights switch-on show: The centrepiece of the evening, bringing Press Play on Christmas to life with a spectacular celebration of festive lights and 90s energy will take place from 6pm. Press Play on Christmas photobooth in Kingly Court: Step into the festive theme and capture a keepsake at the dedicated Press Play on Christmas photobooth. Your moment on stage: Visitors will have the opportunity to step onto the stage for their own Polaroid photo following the big Switch On moment, creating a festive memento of the evening. Festive Shopping: One night only festive discounts and offers From beauty and accessories to fashion and gifts, Carnaby Street's stores are getting into the festive spirit with a host of special offers and in-store experiences on Wednesday 4 November. Whether you're starting your Christmas shopping early, looking for a gift or simply browsing, there will be plenty of reasons to step inside. Highlights include: Fashion and accessories: Enjoy 20% off at Omnes, 20% off at FINLAY with complimentary drinks and nibbles, 15% off full-price styles at GANNI, and 10% off at Nudie Jeans. RIXO is giving its first 50 customers a scratch card for the chance to win 10% off everything or a gift with purchase. Astrid & Miyu offers complimentary gift wrapping, while EDIKTED and Paul Smith both bring in-store DJs alongside complimentary hot chocolate at EDIKTED, mulled wine at Paul Smith. Gifts with purchase: Spend £150 at Barbour for a free gift, while stocks last, or £100 at Nobody's Child for a complimentary triangle scarf. IZIPIZI's first five customers from 4pm receive a three-piece gift set, with a complimentary acetate cord for everyone after. Beauty and wellbeing: PURESEOUL has 10% off full-price products from 4-8pm, plus a free loyalty gift with any purchase, while stocks last. Charlotte Tilbury's Dial-a-Wish game launches in-store on the night - buy any three products for the chance to play and win a prize. Aesop hosts an exclusive shopping evening with wine, cheese and personalised fragrance and skincare consultations. Pixioffers complimentary drinks, snacks and skincare consultations, plus personalised Glow Tonic and Antioxidant Tonic for spends over £35. Switch-On Ticket required: MOSCOT is offering 20% off all frames, redeemable with a ticket only. Don't miss the Choose Love pop-up, which will open its doors on Carnaby Street for the event, where every gift bought helps support refugees and displaced people this Christmas. Further participating brands include Ben Sherman, Diesel, Cubitts, Eastpak, Happy Socks, Jimmy Fairly, Missoma, Oakley and Ray-Ban - plenty more reasons to make Carnaby Street your first stop this Christmas. Celebrate with exclusive food and drink offers From seasonal sips to dinner with friends, Carnaby Street and Soho offer plenty of ways to make an evening of the switch-on. Highlights include: Complimentary drinks: Quote "This is Soho" at Disrepute for a welcome drink, or "Carnaby Light Switch-On" at Kolamba for a glass of sparkling wine. At Two Floors, any dine-in order between 4pm and 7pm comes with a complimentary mulled wine, while stocks last. Seasonal drinks and sweet treats: JENKI has 20% off a seasonal matcha or hojicha special from 2-8pm. EL&N is offering complimentary iced matcha with a pastry at its Carnaby Street café for a limited time. At Pastaio, quote "Let There Be Light" when ordering a plate of pasta for a complimentary mulled wine slushy. Festive food and drink experiences: Dishoom's festive chai pop-up sits right outside the restaurant, and Zahter will have warming glasses of mulled wine for purchase. Festive pop-up treats: Cocomelt's Kingly Court pop-up will be serving their renowned cookies, including an exclusive Quality Street cookie only available at Carnaby Street. How to give back this Christmas in Soho StreetSmart UK: Restaurants and bars across Soho and Carnaby Street are helping diners give back, in partnership with StreetSmart UK. From 1 November until 31 December, participating venues, including Heard, Cahoots Ticket Hall, Kolamba and The Palomar, are adding a voluntary £1 donation per table to the bill, with 100% of donations going directly to local projects tackling homelessness and supporting vulnerable people across the UK. Choose Love: The Choose Love festive pop-up shop on Carnaby Street is a charity shop with a difference, with every purchase supporting refugees and displaced people around the world. Alongside Choose Love merchandise and a curated edit of fashion and beauty gifts, the shop stocks essential supplies and life-saving items, from hot meals and winter coats to medical kits and clean water, so every purchase helps change a life at a time when help is needed more than ever. Best Spots to Get the Shot The switch-on will be the perfect moment to capture the festive magic of Carnaby Street's Christmas lights, beaming with vibrant neon colours. The two iconic Carnaby Street arches will also be illuminated, framing the perfect festive selfie or group picture moment. Other top spots to snap include the junction on Carnaby Street with Ganton Street to capture the bold bright lights in all their glory, whilst the side streets like Kingly Street and Beak Street will be illuminated with colourful festoons lining the streets. The shops and festive window displays add a layer of extra charm, making Carnaby Street essential for the grid this Christmas. The Kingly Court entrance on Carnaby Street will once again be dressed, this year with vibrant neons and twinkling lights, making it one of the season's best spots for a selfie. For a more interactive keepsake, head to the Press Play on Christmas photobooth in Kingly Court or take advantage of the on stage Polaroid photo opportunity with the event photographer. Plan Your Visit What: Carnaby Street's Christmas Lights Switch-On, Press Play on Christmas When: Wednesday 4 November 2026, 4pm to 8pm Where: Carnaby Street and the surrounding Soho neighbourhood Entry: Free and open to everyone. Switch-On Ticket: Free registration for a complimentary cocktail for the first 1,000 ticket holders on the night and exclusive shopping & dining offers

A famous name does not put you on the AI shortlist. Found by Flux asked three AI assistants the same shopping questions every week. The median brand appeared in 1.9% of answers. Some well-known names sat low in their categories. Vishal Verma Flux is a Shopify Plus agency that also sells AI search services. Its Found by Flux tracker published "The State of AI Visibility in Ecommerce: October 2026" on Oct 26. Flux has a stake in the topic, so treat it as an agency study. It states that every number on its page comes from its own data. How Found by Flux measures. Every week, Found asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews the same 150 shopping questions for each category and records every answer. A brand's AI visibility is the share of collected answers that name it. The study covers 66 lists in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, 2,541 brands and 313,600 answers. The latest scan window is 16 to 25 October 2026. Flux notes that a mention can be a recommendation, a comparison or a qualification, and that visibility does not measure sales or product quality. Most brands are close to invisible. Of 2,541 brands, 1,845 (72.6%) appear in fewer than 5% of the answers for their category, and 956 (37.6%) in fewer than 1%. And 219 (8.6%) were never named once. The median brand showed up in 1.9% of answers. The average category leader showed up in 26.6%. A well-known name is not enough. Flux says brand size helps but does not decide the answer. In its US beauty list, Glossier appears in 2.7% of answers and ranks 41st of 66 brands. In the same list, CeraVe leads at 34.0%. Flux gives more examples. Charlotte Tilbury ranks 5th in UK beauty at 9.4% but 33rd in US beauty at 2.9%. Gymshark leads UK activewear at 47.4% and ranks 7th in the US at 16.9%. Flux's likely reason is coverage: AI answers draw on what is written about a brand in each market. The assistants disagree. In 35 of 56 categories, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name a different number one brand. Of the brands named at all, 14% (260 of 1,863) appear on only one assistant. Google AI Overviews names brands least often, at 4.3% of answers on average against 5.4% for ChatGPT and 5.1% for Perplexity. One look is not a measurement. The top 10 brands in each list swing an average of 4.2 points between their best and worst weekly scan. A brand that checks once may have caught a good week. Flux also finds the top 3 brands take 37.7% of all mentions in a category, so the shortlist is short. What to do this week. Tick these off as you go. How Shopthru.ai helps. Shopthru.ai is an AI agents team for consumer brands. It asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI, Perplexity and Copilot what your shoppers ask, finds where AI gets your products, prices or policies wrong, and drafts each fix into an approval inbox. It ships only on your yes, then checks again. Instagram and Amazon are next.

Christina Aguilera teams up with Charlotte Tilbury for 2026 Holiday Campaign. October 2, 2026 Deal Type: Holiday Campaign Face / Brand Ambassador Announced: October 1, 2026 * Pop superstar Christina Aguilera fronts Charlotte Tilbury's 2026 "Hollywood Holiday Wonderland" global campaign. * The campaign draws creative inspiration from Old Hollywood burlesque and marks the 25th anniversary of Aguilera's 2001 hit "Lady Marmalade". * Featured collection items include the Hollywood Flawless Light Tricks Eye Palette alongside an interactive Harrods pop-up running October 2-27, 2026. * Aguilera has no prior commercial history with Tilbury, making this her first official beauty partnership with the brand following major 2026 deals with Nexxus and Beau Joie. Cosmetics brand Charlotte Tilbury has unveiled pop icon Christina Aguilera as the star of its 2026 global holiday campaign, titled "Hollywood Holiday Wonderland". The theatrical visual campaign blends Old Hollywood elegance with burlesque showgirl energy. It specifically celebrates the 25th anniversary of Aguilera's 2001 chart-topping single "Lady Marmalade". Model Jasmine Tookes and Tilbury's niece Bella Tilbury join Aguilera in the promotional films. The holiday lineup spotlights hero beauty items such as the Hollywood Flawless Light Tricks Eye Palette, Airbrush Flawless foundation, and the brand's advent calendar. Alongside the digital and retail release, Charlotte Tilbury opened an interactive, theatrical pop-up experience inside Harrods department store in London running from October 2 through October 27, 2026. The project marks Aguilera's first official commercial campaign with Charlotte Tilbury, formalizing a longtime personal affinity for the cosmetics house. Charlotte Tilbury has regularly enlisted A-list talent for major campaigns, previously collaborating with supermodels like Kate Moss, Bella Hadid, and Kylie Minogue. Tilbury's strategy mirrors a broader retail trend where cosmetics houses tap legendary musicians for festive gift shopping, much like when John Legend fronted Sephora Europe's 2026 holiday campaign. The beauty campaign follows notable live milestones for Aguilera. After releasing her late-2025 live album, Christmas in Paris (Live from the Eiffel Tower), she performed international concert dates in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Austria. She was also booked as the sole UK headliner for the Heritage Live Festival at Sandringham Estate before organizers cancelled the series in July 2026. Charlotte Tilbury's decision to build its 2026 holiday campaign around Christina Aguilera highlights a calculated move toward high-impact nostalgia. By tying the "Hollywood Holiday Wonderland" visual theme directly to the 25th anniversary of "Lady Marmalade," the brand bypasses generic seasonal sparkle to tap into an era of bold theatrical glamour that connects across multiple generations. For Aguilera, this deal caps a focused 2026 brand strategy: rather than pursuing standard one-off social posts, she is building an ecosystem of high-visibility partnerships that balance mass retail beauty with luxury equity stakes. Does tying a seasonal beauty collection to a classic music video anniversary like "Lady Marmalade" make the products more compelling to purchase? How does Christina Aguilera's theatrical showgirl aesthetic fit Charlotte Tilbury compared to ambassadors like Kate Moss?