All editions

10–16 September 2026

A world premiere opens previews at the Arcola the same night an all-femme grime line-up takes over the Yard, and Strawberry Hill House disappears under thirty florists' installations for four days only. Saturday spreads the city thin — Open House Festival's 800-plus free buildings, a flotilla of historic boats at St Katharine Docks, Woolwich's biggest carnival yet — while Café OTO and Vortex both return after a fortnight's rest and a Bermondsey textile show closes for good on Sunday.

3–9 September 2026

Notting Hill hands over three weeks to 200 free indie films the same week a brand-new East London museum throws open a free Thursday-night DJ residency and Mayfair's autumn gallery season begins in earnest. Hackney Wick gets a day-to-night jazz festival, an art fair turns out to be entirely about food, and M.C. Escher and the Saatchi Gallery's celestial blockbuster both close within the window.

20–26 August 2026

Nine titans of British free improvisation share one Dalston stage for a single bookable night. Greenwich+Docklands International Festival opens free in Woolwich, Sophie Okonedo leads a Donmar revival of Turgenev, and Danielle de Niese directs her first opera at Holland Park. A trio of major exhibitions — Hockney, Hurvin Anderson, the RA Summer show — all close the same Sunday.

13–19 August 2026

A community arts centre in Deptford throws a free Saturday fete with a world-record hula-hoop troupe. Three East London kitchens lay one 300-person table for charity, the British Museum quietly opens 110 Netherlandish drawings unseen together since the 1930s, and a DIY venue in New Cross runs gigs seven nights straight. Wes Anderson's retrospective and two Grimeborn operas all close the same Saturday.

30 July–5 August 2026

The Garden Cinema runs new restorations of Tarkovsky's final two films, Angel Comedy fills The Bill Murray with Edinburgh work-in-progress sets, and a former Kiln chef cooks canapés for one free night in Smithfield ahead of her own restaurant. Two blue-chip closings collide on 31 July, and Brilliant Corners plays its last Dalston sessions before a fortnight's refurb.

23–29 July 2026

The Royal Academy opens its first Richard Dadd retrospective in fifty years, Opera Holland Park throws its canopy open for a 40-piece Broadway night, and Peckham's kitchens serve £10 plates all weekend for the borough's food club. A Wigmore Hall song recital and a brand-new live score at Wilton's silent-comedy night fill the quieter days on either side.

16–22 July 2026

Rough Trade turns fifty with a full weekend takeover of the Southbank Centre — Pulp, Scritti Politti, caroline, and Jarvis Cocker introducing a live-scored Kes. The National Gallery opens its first-ever Waldmüller show, free, Soho's own village fête turns 51, and Evan Parker launches a new duo record at Café OTO.

2–8 July 2026

Steve Reich on a Peckham rooftop, Toninho Horta at Kings Place, SET's reopening fundraiser, and scratch nights inside the Yard's unfinished new theatre — revised with the full harvest pipeline.

18–24 Jun 2026

11–17 Jun 2026

13–19 May 2026

30 April – 6 May 2026

23 – 30 April 2026

16 – 23 April 2026

9 – 16 April 2026

2 – 9 April 2026

26 March – 2 April 2026

19–26 March 2026