London Design Festival
The festival's programme spans eleven Design Districts across London, each built around a local creative community and its studios, showrooms and galleries. Expect exhibitions, installations, talks and venues staying open later than usual. The 2026 districts include Bankside, Brompton, Chelsea, Mayfair and Shoreditch Design Week, with Soho and Blackhorse Creates joining for the first time. The V&A anchors the festival with the Global Design Forum from 12 to 14 September, and this year's Landmark Projects put an audiovisual installation by Mykola Kabluka inside St Paul's Cathedral and a bamboo pavilion by Studio Saar on Strand Aldwych.
📍Eleven districts across London | 12–20 September 2026
Brick Lane Curry Festival
For one Sunday, Brick Lane fills with food, music and a procession. Restaurants cook at street stalls outside their doors, selling regional and speciality dishes rather than curry-house standards. The day opens with a procession from Allen Gardens to the Brick Lane Arch, led by Chinese lion dancers, dance companies and three giant puppets. Nish, Mumzy and Khiyo headline the stage, and The Gaat family zone runs saree draping and dance workshops. Street entertainment carries on from midday until 7 pm. It is free, and registering in advance on Eventbrite gets you 20% off at participating restaurants. Brick Lane had more than 60 curry restaurants at its mid-2000s peak and 23 by 2020. The 2025 edition was the first in nine years and drew around 20,000 people. Aldgate East is the nearest tube; Liverpool Street is about ten minutes' walk.
📍Brick Lane, E1 | 20 September 2026
The Great River Race
The Great River Race is a rowing marathon on the Thames, in which up to 275 crews cover 21.6 miles (about 34.8 km) from Millwall in the east up to Ham, beside Ham House and just above Richmond Bridge. The course passes under 28 bridges and takes in everything from serious competitive crews to boats out for the day. It is a handicap race, so the slowest boats set off first and the fastest chase them down, which means there is no single start time and boats pass a given bridge over a long window. Founded in 1988 with 61 boats, it now draws entrants from across Britain and abroad. Tower Bridge and the Battersea Bridge promenades are among the best places to watch.
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📍River Thames, Millwall to Ham | 12 September 2026
Shoreditch Design Week
The largest of the London Design Festival's districts fills Shoreditch with exhibitions, installations, showroom presentations and design brand events, with more than a hundred participating venues. The programme puts new designers alongside current thinking about the home, restaurants, retail spaces and the workplace, and it carries on the legacy of the former Shoreditch Design Triangle. Worth knowing before you plan a day: the four curated exhibitions House of ICON, Design at Work, Material Matters and ND Selects, run only from 15 to 17 September. After that, the district's showroom events continue without them.
📍Venues across Shoreditch | 15–20 September 2026
Open House Festival
This architecture festival opens up buildings, homes and other interesting spaces across all 33 London boroughs, many of which are closed to the public for the rest of the year. The programme also includes guided tours, walks, workshops and other events about the city and how it is built. Everything is free, but capacity-limited events must be booked in advance through a free visitor account. Booking opened on 19 August, so the best-known buildings are already going. Anything listed as a drop-in needs no booking.
📍Across London | 12–20 September 2026
Focus/26 on Design
Interiors and design take over Design Centre Chelsea Harbour for five days of new collections, the people behind them and the arguments of the moment. The programme runs to more than a hundred free events, including meet-the-designer sessions, talks, tours and workshops across the centre’s 135 showrooms and thirty-odd pop-up brands, with a smaller strand of paid expert talks alongside. Entry is free, but registration is required; showroom events are drop-in, while the main-stage Conversations in Design talks cost £10 and need booking. Doors open 9.30 am to 5.30 pm, Monday to Friday.
📍Design Centre Chelsea Harbour | 14–18 September 2026
Soho Jazz Festival
For four nights jazz spreads across Soho, onto ten stages and into the area's music clubs. The programme leans towards new and emerging performers, with sets at Alfie's Soho, Jack Solomons Jazz Club, Archer St. Club and other venues within a few streets of each other. The festival works on passes rather than individual tickets, so you buy a night and move between venues: day passes are £35 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and £55 on Saturday, with an All Access four-day pass from £70. Passes are named, and photo ID is checked at the door.
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📍Soho | 16–19 September 2026
Fleurs de Villes DIANA
This exhibition tells the story of Princess Diana's life, style and the causes she cared about through flowers. At its centre are fifteen figures built from fresh blooms by London florists, each interpreting one of her best-known outfits or a defining moment, paired with archival storytelling. Other floral installations and photo spots fill out the show, and a share of every ticket goes to The Diana Award. It is timed entry, and the show stays open until 8 pm from Thursday to Saturday. Adult tickets run to around £32–34.
📍East Wing Galleries, Somerset House, Strand | 16 September – 6 October 2026
Frieze Sculpture 2026
This free open-air exhibition puts work by eleven international artists through the English Gardens in Regent's Park, curated for a fourth year by Fatoş Üstek. The 2026 line-up includes Angel Otero, Conrad Shawcross, Tarini Sethi and Ivana Bašić. It is the free half of Frieze: the ticketed Frieze London and Frieze Masters fairs run from 14 to 18 October in the same park, while the sculptures are up for a month before them and a fortnight after, with no ticket needed at any point. It’s a great way to enjoy Regent’s Park with a new twist.
📍The Regent's Park | 16 September – 1 November 2026
Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience
This VR experience at the Science Museum takes visitors on a journey through space, from the vibrations and flares of the Sun to a distant exoplanet where volcanoes erupt and diamonds glitter below the surface, past a supernova and up to the edge of a supermassive black hole as it pulls a star apart. The VR section runs 40 minutes and the whole visit takes about an hour, in small guided groups. It starts from the Technicians Gallery on Level 1. The minimum age is 10, tickets start at around £15, and you also need a free museum admission ticket. No closing date has been announced, so check availability before you plan around it.
📍Science Museum, Level 1, Exhibition Road, South Kensington | dates vary; September slots bookable
