From mid November, a salon's diary changes shape. Party season brings longer days, more colour and blow-dry appointments, gift voucher questions at the desk, and clients asking when your last appointment before Christmas is. If you run a hair salon, a barbershop, a nail bar or a beauty salon, the screen in your reception or waiting area is the simplest place to answer those questions before anyone has to ask.
Here is how to get your salon screens ready for the festive season, without adding work for a fully booked team.
Give each screen one clear job
Clients see your screens at different moments, so decide what each one is for.
- Window: what passers-by need to know in a few seconds, such as festive opening hours, "walk-ins welcome" times or a gift voucher offer you genuinely run.
- Reception: booking reminders, your Christmas and New Year hours, and how to rebook before the holidays.
- Waiting area: your price list, seasonal treatments, retail products you stock and a short look at your team's work.
One message per slide works far better than a crowded price board.
Map out your festive calendar
The season is really a run of short campaigns. Put them in order now:
- Mid November to early December: party season styling, festive nails and any gift voucher offer.
- Small Business Saturday: this falls on Saturday 5 December 2026, according to the official campaign site. It is a good day to thank local clients and remind them you are independent. Our Black Friday and Small Business Saturday guide has more ideas.
- Christmas week: your last appointments before Christmas and any late openings.
- Between Christmas and New Year: reduced hours, and New Year's Eve appointments.
- Early January: back to normal hours, plus anything you are promoting for the quieter weeks.
Bank holidays shape all of this. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Christmas Day is on Friday 25 December 2026, the substitute Boxing Day holiday is Monday 28 December, and New Year's Day is Friday 1 January 2027. Scotland also has a substitute 2 January holiday on Monday 4 January 2027. You can check every date on the gov.uk bank holidays page.
Show prices clearly and in full
A screen suits a tidy, readable price list. UK consumer law expects the price you show to include any charges a client can't avoid. Under the Competition and Markets Authority's price transparency guidance, mandatory charges belong in the headline price, and a "from" price is fine as long as it includes them.
- If you add a festive or late appointment charge, build it into the price shown, rather than mentioning it at the till.
- Use "from" prices where the cost depends on hair length or time, and say what affects the final price.
- Make sure the screen matches your booking system and printed list, so clients never see two different prices.
This is general information, not legal advice, and rules can change. Check the official CMA guidance for anything specific to your salon.
Let schedules do the switching
Nobody wants to update a screen between clients on a Saturday in December. With dayparting, content runs only during the dates and times you choose, so your screens change on their own.
- Give seasonal content a start and end date, so party season slides appear in November and disappear after New Year.
- Use priority for one-off notices. A "closing early on Christmas Eve" slide can sit above your usual loop for just a few days, then step aside.
- Target the right screens. Send the price list to the waiting area and the opening hours to the window, rather than everything everywhere.
If dayparting is new to you, our post on five ways cafés use dayparting explains the idea, and it works just as well in a salon.
Readable, calm and private
A salon is meant to feel relaxing, so keep your screens easy on the eye.
- Use strong contrast and large text that reads from the waiting chairs, not just from the screen.
- Show each slide long enough to read, usually eight to ten seconds.
- Go easy on flashing or fast motion, which can be uncomfortable for some clients.
- Never show client names, appointment lists or before and after photos without clear permission. If you share your team's work, use images clients have agreed to, and keep them anonymous where you can.
- Keep key information, such as changed opening hours, on your website and booking messages too, not only on the screen.
Tip: Build your Christmas opening hours slide today, give it a start and end date, and publish it. When the diary is full in December, it will already be doing its job.
Your festive salon screen checklist
- Write down every changed opening time and last appointment date.
- Decide which screen shows what: window, reception and waiting area.
- Update your price list so every price includes mandatory charges.
- Create your seasonal slides, one message each.
- Schedule them with start and end dates, and set priorities for one-off notices.
- Publish, then sit in your own waiting chair and check every screen.
- Put a reminder in your diary for early January to return to normal hours.
Try it before the rush
You don't need special hardware. A TV with an HDMI port and a Fire TV or Android TV device can run OrbiSignage, and media is stored on each player, so your screen keeps playing if the salon Wi-Fi drops. Get the player from our downloads page and pair your screen with a six-digit code. The Free trial covers up to 3 screens for 7 days with 250MB of storage, and no card is required. After that, see our per-screen pricing.
Dates and guidance are correct at time of writing (October 2026).