August events in London

For a lot of Londoners, Notting Hill Carnival on the August Bank Holiday Weekend flashes by in a blaze of feathers, Red Stripe and tinnitus. To those who make it happen, it’s a year-round operation to create one of the biggest and oldest street parties in the world. More than two million people usually flock to the streets of W11 for Carnival weekend. It’s free to join the family day on the Sunday, as well as the Monday street party which is for the hard partiers. It’s a celebration of freedom and Caribbean culture, with an iconic parade showcasing the best of mas, soca, calypso, steel bands and soundsystems. What are you waiting for? 

All Points East returns to Vicky Park for its seventh edition in 2025. Since debuting in 2018, the festival has garnered a reputation for building some of the most exciting line-ups in the UK. Its headliners are often indie or dance-focused big-hitters, while its undercards are packed with cult heroes and rising stars you can say you saw first. If your music preferences lie in the Venn diagram of indie and electronic then this is the festival for you, with the likes of Barry Can't Swim, Confidence Man, Shygirl, RAYE , the Maccabees, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Cribs, and Nilüfer Yanya on the bill this year. 

The RA’s annual showcase of all the artists you need to know about right now will return this June to brighten up the summer holidays. Now in it’s 257th year, the world’s oldest open submission exhibition (which means anyone can enter their work to be considered for inclusion) is curated by a different member of the Royal Academy each year. The artist tasked with the big job in 2025 is British-Iranian architect Farshid Moussavi. The great thing about the Summer Exhibition is that it’s open to all, and the selectors pick from thousands of entries. That means that your mate’s mum’s weird little whittled sculptures of George Michael might be shown alongside something by Antony Gormley. 

Boiler Room's summer festival returns to south London for another massive open-air celebration. Its ’lethal program of talent’ is led by some of the country’s most influential dance crews. The party-starters have curated their own stage of world-class talent. That includes producer extraordinaire Joy Orbison and the iconic DJ Theo Parrish leading the charge. On the Places + Faces stage, there’s Kendrick Lamar collaborator Mustard, superstar DJ Kenny Beats, legendary beatmaker The Alchemist and Time Out cover star DJ AG, among other big-hitters. Meanwhile, you've got Dialled In coming through with DJ sets from the likes of Kahani vs Kunal Merchant and Yuné Pinku, and Recess enlisting Dlala Thukzin and Crazy Cousinz pres. Funky House All Stars plus many, many more. 

Beer gardens are one of the best things about London. There’s no finer way to spend a sunny (or even not-so-sunny) afternoon in the capital, than supping on a couple of cold boys under the city’s azure-ish sky. If you’re looking to sink some pints in the breezy great outdoors, we’ve got you covered with our tried-and-tested list of the city’s best beer gardens.

The world’s largest celebration for LGBTQ+ people of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Middle Eastern, UK Black Pride celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and around 20,000 attendees are expected to descend on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for another big party and protest. The festivities will include performers, community stall-holders, food and drink, and special workshops. The theme for this year has yet to be announced at the time of writing, but organisers are promising the “biggest and boldest” edition of UK Black Pride yet.

Seasoned London festival-goers have been singing the praises of this 10,000-capacity Southwark Park festival since it debuted in 2023, thanks to its boutique size, community vibe and collaborative line-ups created with help from some of the city’s best culture venues. Rally is back for its third edition. Headlining in 2025 are electronic DJ and producer Floating Points and Brit Award-winning rapper CASISDEAD, with south London-born experimental outfit Speaker’s Corner Quartet, DJ Ben UFO, Black Midi frontman Geordie Greep and indie rockers Porridge Radio also on the bill. 

Labyrinth On The Thames – masterminded by promoter Labryinth – will see different artists from the world of electronic music take over the Old Royal Naval College (a UNESCO World Heritage Site!) for six days of unmissable performances. The headliners confirmed so far? South African DJ and producer Black Coffee, legendary techno DJ Solomun – playing a marathon five-hour set, Australian tech-house producer Fisher, and London-based dance music label Anjunadeep – whose artists include Lane 8, Yotto, and Dusky. 

Brigadoon, the 1947 musical from My Fair Lady writers Lerner & Loewe has faded out of fashion, presumably because its premise of a couple of American tourists stumbling across a magical Scottish village that only appears every couple of hundred years is actually pretty patronising. But, top Scottish playwright Rona Munro has been brought in to update the book of the first major UK revival since 1988. It will see Drew McOnie direct his inaugural production as Open Air Theatre artistic director. The exact nature of the update is TBC, but it appears that lost-in-the-Highlands American protagonists Tommy and Jeff have been changed from game hunting tourists to crashed WW2 fighter pilots.

Having outgrown its first home in Hackney Wick, London’s queer nightlife festival Body Movements levelled up last summer, making a dazzling debut in Southwark Park with five stages showcasing the great and good of the LGBTQ+ party scene in the capital and beyond. It was easily the best edition yet of the groundbreaking festival, so we’re thrilled that the great and good of the London queer scene will once again come together in the same location for its 2025 edition. A host of new and returning queer nightlife collectives feature, from London stalwarts like Adonis, Pxssy Palace and Little Gay Brother to international crews including Berlin’s Power Dance Club and Brooklyn’s Function. The likes of I.Jordan, HAAi and Mura Masa will be DJing, while there’ll also be live sets from US rapper Cakes da Killer, experimental Parisian artist Coucou Chloe and anonymous London pop maverick Lynks.

Make what you will of this, but for the biggest name Shakespeare play in the Globe’s summer 2025 season, director Robin Belfield has opted to go for the play’s rarely deployed full name. We don’t really have any as to what’s likely from this production beyond that, though the accompanying publicity image suggests an upbeat and vibrant take on the story of shipwreck and mistaken identity that is all the more glorious for its malleability – a rare play that can be as happy or sad as you like.

After a hugely successful first year in 2024, award-winning and influential rapper, DJ, and record label head Skepta is not only bringing his Big Smoke festival back for a second year but expanding it too. This year, it will take over Crystal Palace Bowl for two days, with both closed out with sets from the man himself. As well as delivering a full-scale performance himself, he’ll be joined by a mix of stars, including headliner Central Cee, rising stars Chy Cartier and SkylaTylaa, and grime legends like JME, Frisco and Chip.

Nothing says summer quite like the towering stalks and glowing yellow petals of the noble sunflower. Get neck-deep in heliotropic heaven at these golden fields full of custard-yellow blooms, which are at their peak from August to September.

Less than a year after making his Doctor Who-era stage return in the NT’s sublime The Importance of Being Earnest, Ncuti Gatwa is back at it again. And if Earnest was a big ensemble piece in which he was a very enjoyable cog, US playwright Liz Duffy Adams’s Born with Teeth is a two-hander that is presumably pretty much wall-to-wall Gatwa. He’ll star as the legendary playwright Christopher Marlowe opposite Edward Bluemel as William Shakespeare; the year is 1591 and in a paranoid Elizabethan England the two are collaborating on Henry VI together with a mix of flirtation and suspcion.

There are few more striking spots to catch a movie than the iconic surrounds of the Barbican Sculpture Court. As usual, the City of London’s temple of the arts has an inventively curated line-up in store for the final week of August. Cineastes can revel in the cult sci-fi extravaganza that is David Lynch’s 1984 ‘Dune’, while music lovers have an outdoor screening of Björk’s mesmerising new concert movie ‘Cornucopia’. Standard tickets are £18 (£12 for under-25s and £10 for under-18s) and there’s street food to feast on while you sit back, relax and enjoy the show.