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. 

August (and early September) will be your last chance to watch Hollywood star Rachel Zegler in a reworked version of Jamie Lloyd’s Evita at the London Palladium. We’ve given the show four stars, and Zegler has been wowing fans every night by literally singing to the public for free on a balcony outside the theatre. Get ready to cry for Argentina.

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.

He’s just stepped in to save the day at Glasto, and now he wants you to come to his very own festival too. 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.

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.

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.

Waterloo’s Lower Marsh buzzes with fun-loving energy on a rainy winter’s night, so it doesn’t need​ an excuse to put on a street party on a sunny summer evening. Still, Lower Marsh Lates is providing one with a run of outdoor screenings right in the thick of it all – and perfectly positioned for some of the best street food (and cocktail) options in town. Closing the cinema’s summer season will be ‘Grease’ on August 28, which kicks off at 6.30pm with live music starting an hour earlier.

The last Lyttelton theatre show to be programmed by Rufus Norris prior to his departure looks like a good one: following the Jodie Comer-fuelled West End smash Prima Facie, writer Susie Miller and director Justin Martin join forces with a new star for for follow-up Inter Alia. Rosamund Pike has had a good few years with screen hits Saltburn and The Wheel of Time, and now she makes her National Theatre debut to star as Jessica Parks, a maverick high court judge who precariously balances her work and her home life. We don’t know a lot more about the Miriam Buether-designed show just yet, but the fact Pike will be joined by actors Jamie Glover and Jasper Talbot points to the fact that this won’t be a monologue in the vein of Miller’s last.

Sure, London has got plenty of lidos, the Hamsptead ponds and the River Lea (AKA costa del Hackney), but sometimes a small body of water just doesn’t cut it. Sometimes, what you need is to feel buffeted by the strong coastal wind, smell the sea salt and hear the squawking of seagulls. So isn’t it great that London is surrounded by quaint and picturesque seaside towns, and many can be reached within an hour or two. From the up-and-coming St Leonards, to old faithful’s like Brighton and Margate, escape the heat at one of these gorgeous beach-side spots. 

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London’s spectacular free outdoor Greenwich + Docklands International Festival is back for 2025, taking place over three consecutive weekends starting with the August bank holiday. Celebrating its 30th edition in 2025, the festival will kick off with Above And Beyond, a breathtaking acrobatic feat that will see eight parkour performers from French company Lézards Bleus traversing landmark buildings around Woolwich accompanied by music from the Greenwich-based Citizens of the World Choir. As always, everything at GDIF is free to attend, and you don’t even need to book in advance. Simply turn up and enjoy! 

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. 

Championing ‘Off-location electronic music events for the curious,’ Krankbrother are some of the country's most respected party-starters. This August, you can expect to join many other Londoners in Finsbury Park for a series of events that'll get you moving to an intoxicating dance music soundtrack. On the line-up you’ve got German DJ and ‘Beyond Beliefs’ hitmaker Ben Böhmer on August 1. Then you can catch ANOTR on August 2. That’s followed by berlioz’s curated party with Bellaire, Jacques Greene, Jitwam, Laurence Guy and Logic1000 on August 3, with Honey Dijon following suit the next weekend. British duo CamelPhat will wrap it up with their first-ever headline outdoor event in the capital (August 10). 

The award-winning Bad Boy Pizza Society (BBPS) has already dished out slices at residencies across London, from Belleville Brewery and Next Door Records to Seven Dials Market and Vinegar Yard. Now, BBPS has finally got the keys to its very first permanent bricks and mortar pizzeria, which opens in Bethnal Green this August. It’ll be a slice shop by day and a casual sit-down pizzeria by night, serving up its beloved New York style pizza alongside small plates and sides like ‘chicken vodka parms’, ‘giant caesar sharers’ and ‘fluffy Sicilian squares’. Yum. 

After a great debut last summer, London’s Jazz Cafe returns to Burgess Park for its sophomore edition in early August, with a line-up traversing jazz (of course), RnB, hip hop and electronic sounds across four stages. Headlining the 15,000-capacity festival in September is American singer and saxophonist Masego, best known for his RnB hit ‘Tadow’. And just announced on the lineup is New York rapper Westside Gunn, who will make his UK stage debut. Also playing Jazz Cafe festival is Benny the Butcher, Elmiene, Nooriyah, Nectar Woode and more. 

Location in the walled gardens of Hertfordshire’s The Grove hotel, Everyman’s pop-up is a special occasion option – because you’ll need to splash out for a room for the night or dinner in one of the hotel restaurants to experience it. Still, if you're up for a luxe take on the al fresco cinema thing, then give it a whirl: a crowdpleasing line-up of movies spans Dirty Dancing, Pitch Perfect, When Harry Met Sally, and quite a few kids faves including Minions and Paddington in Peru. The beanbags and headphones are all top of the range. 

If a trip to Hampton Court has been on your to-do list, why not time your visit to coincide with this foodie extravaganza? Over the August Bank Holiday weekend entrance tickets to Henry VIII’s former gaff give you access to more than 150 speciality food stalls, so you can feast like like a Tudor king in the palace's gorgeous green spaces. There's also pop-up bars, kids’ activities, and an array of local musicians taking to the bandstand to soundtrack your culinary adventure. 

After setting up in its new home of Burgess Park last year, Maiden Voyage will once again transform the south London space into one big grassy dancefloor for its 2025 edition. This time, Azealia Banks will headline the PXSSY PALACE main stage, while R&B fusion star Amaarae will also appear on the bill. The rest of the line-up is yet to be revealed, but you can bet it’ll be a strong one.

‘Weather schmeather’ say the people behind Rooftop Film Club. After opening in spring, Stratford and Peckham’s rooftop cinema institutions are still going strong this August – and they’re employing a secret weapon against a bit of chilly night air: snuggle power. Two-person ‘fireside loveseats’ come with a personal wood-fired heater and hot beverage (regular, snuggle-free seating is available). On the programme for August are recent hits like Wicked and Sinners and Moana 2, as well as evergreen classics (Devil Wears Prada, Notting Hill, 10 Things I Hate About You, Pretty Woman, Pulp Fiction, Do The Right Thing and more). Tickets come in at £18 for adults and £8 for children.

Looking for ways to keep the kids entertained during the summer holidays? Here’s something for you. Every summer theatres across the West End participate in London Kids Week. Run by the Society of London Theatre, it’s an initiative that offers under-18s free tickets during the school hols when accompanied by a paying adult. In addition, up to two further children’s tickets can be booked at half price by the same adult. It’s always a good showing and runs the gamut from full on kids’ theatre like The Smeds and the Smoos and The Tiger Who Came to Tea – clearly aimed at younger audiences – to much more adult fare like Stranger Things: The First Shadow and the Rachel Zegler-starring Evita.