17 May in Oslo with children
Oslo's children's parade takes over three hours for everyone to pass. Here are the times, and practical advice for the day with small children.
The parade hour by hour
With small children
Fifty to sixty minutes, without a break
That is how long each school takes from start to finish. It is the number that decides whether your child can manage to walk in the parade, and you want to know it before you are standing in the line-up.
Watching is a completely different day from walking
With children below school age it is usually better to watch the parade than walk in it. Then you can arrive when you like, stand where there is room, and go home when it is enough. The parade is long, and it takes over three hours for everyone to pass, so you do not have to be there on the dot.
A pram in the centre that day is hard work
Karl Johan and the area around the Palace are packed, streets are closed, and places you can get into with a pram are few and far between. Standing further along the route gives both more room and an easier escape when someone needs to go home and sleep.
How the day looks at school
The day starts at school, not in the centre
If your children attend an Oslo school, 17 May usually begins in the schoolyard between 8 and 9am, with the flag raising and the school band. A short ceremony follows, with a speech from the head of the student council and singing together. Some schools first lay a wreath at a local monument or visit a nearby care home.
The school travels together to its assembly point
After the ceremony, the school walks or takes buses to its place in the parade. When that happens depends entirely on the school's number in the running order: some leave around 9am, others not until 10.40. Schools some distance from the centre often lay on buses for the outward journey.
There is rarely a bus back
The school will often bus pupils to the assembly point, but organises no transport back. Parents meet their child where the parade breaks up, which is a different place from where it started. The school states which dispersal point it uses. Read it before the day rather than while standing there.
Games and food come after the parade
The schoolyard party is in the afternoon, not the morning. When it starts varies a lot, from around 12.30 to as late as 4pm, because it depends on when the school finishes in the parade. It is organised by the parents' committee or the parents of one year group, usually fourth, with games, cakes and hot dogs. This is what suits younger siblings who did not walk in the parade, and many families skip the centre and turn up only for this.
Check the school's own page, not the city's
The city publishes the parade and the running order, but not what happens at each school. The school posts that itself, often only in the days beforehand. The pattern above is drawn from eight Oslo schools across the city, and the times vary by an hour. Use them to plan roughly and the school's own programme to plan precisely.
If you celebrate in your own neighbourhood instead, the afternoon schoolyard party is often what suits children below school age best. The city's programme has the running order and the official schedule.
The times are the city's own and repeat from year to year, checked on 12 August 2026. Check the city's programme for the year before planning to the minute.