London events in July 2026

As soon as June hits, London is packed with parades, parties and protests for Pride Month to mark the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. The London Pride parade is traditionally the focus of festivities, but there are plenty of other LGBTQ+ events taking place both before and after it. Over a million people take to the streets of London for the celebration each summer, with this year’s event scheduled for Saturday July 4.

Recommended: Everything you need to know about the London Pride parade 2025.

For years, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s blockbuster adaptation of TS Eliot’s cat poems has been a byword for ’80s musical theatre kitsch, famous for feline perfomers in glam make-up and legwarmers. And the truly terrible movie adaptation didn't help. But now, it's getting a brand new staging as the Open Air Theatre's 2026 summer musical. It’ll be directed and choreographed by OAT boss Drew McOnie, who'll be tasked with making this banger-filled but resolutely weird show sing 
(or caterwaul) for modern-day audiences.

London's comedy calendar has a new addition as the Southbank Fringe Festival brings more than 30 shows to Big Belly Bar & Comedy Club and nearby venues across the last weekend of July. With over 60 comedians performing, one wristband gives you unlimited access to a packed programme of stand-up, live podcasts, interactive comedy experiences and work-in-progress sets, so you can dip in and out as you please. Expect appearances from Joel Dommett, Reginald D. Hunter, Paul Sinha, Michelle de Swarte and plenty more, alongside rising comics worth discovering.

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As a rising star of the avant garde art scene in ’80s New York, there’s no knowing what brilliant work Cuban-American artist Ana Mendieta might still be producing if her career hadn’t been cut tragically short, but it’s doubly unfortunate that the work she did produce is often obscured by conversations about the murder trial that ensued after she allegedly fell to her death from Manhattan apartment she shared with her husband, modernist sculptor Carl Andre, aged just 36.

Great news, then, that the Tate Modern is putting the art front and centre this summer, in the largest UK exhibition of Ana Mendieta’s work to date, featuring many pieces never exhibited in this country before. Delving into the Havana-born, Iowa-raised artist’s groundbreaking practice spanning performance, photography and video art, it will explore Mendieta’s deep affinity with the natural world, while making the case that she deserves to be remembered as one of the most important artists of the 20th century. 

Latino Life in the Park returns to Walpole Park for its tenth anniversary, bringing live music, food and performances from across Latin America to west London. Expect four stages of salsa, bachata, reggaeton and samba, more than 20 food traders and a spectacular 500-person dance parade in vibrant ceremonial dress. Taking place on July 19, it's one of the capital's most colourful summer festivals.

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Somerset House Summer Series is back for another year. Held in the Edmond J. Safra Fountain court, in the enclave of the iconic Neoclassical building, this ten-day open-air gig series has long held space for an ecclectic range of acts including both exciting up-and-comers and well-known trailblazers from the UK and beyond. Breakthrough pop sensation Naïka, veteran indie band The Cribs, ascendent art-rock outfit Black Country, New Road and psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips are some of the big names on this year’s line-up. Also headlining are Palace, Thee Sacred Souls, Lightning Seeds, Agnes Obel , Venna, Raf-Saperra and Benjamin Clementine.

In the sweltering city heat, few things are more inviting than the prospect of plunging into one of London's finest al fresco swimming pools. And everyone knows it. The capital has well and truly caught the open-air bathing bug over the last few years, but that also means that on the hottest days of the year, you’ll need to book well in advance if you want to secure a poolside spot. The good news is that there’s a bounty of places for getting your outdoor swim fix in the city. Heated or unheated, regimented lanes or wide open water, serious fitness or chilled family fun – these are all of London’s best lidos and outdoor swimming pools for whatever floats your boat.

Once again, London’s most ravey festival will take over Boston Manor Park with some of the biggest names in techno and house. Celebrating its 10th birthday this year, Junction 2 will span a mega two weekends with an absolutley stacked line-up featuring the godmothers and godfathers of electronic music alongside exciting contemporary talent. DJs announced for 2026 include Nina Kraviz, Adam Beyer, Franky Wah, Jeff Mills, Francesco del Garda, Gabrielle Kwarteng b2b Peach, I Hate Models, Miss Monique, Nicolas Lutz.  

Shakespeare's Globe loves a good family summer show, and this year, the team behind previous outings Rough Magic and Midsummer Mechanicals has written a completely new story that's not based on one of the bard's works. Rather, it follows Cass, a young boy whose childhood has been filled with adventures inspired by his grandmother’s love of Shakespeare. But he’s losing interest – can he find it again? Directed by Lucy Cuthertson, it’s aimed at ages five plus.

The Old Royal Naval College is normally a tranquil, historic spot bordered by the peaceful Thames. But it's getting a little bit noisier this July, thanks to promoter Labryinth – which will bring electronic artists from across the world to take over the historic digs for six days of unmissable performances. Headliners for 2026 include The Kooks, Dom Dolla, Peggy Gou, Prospa, Kelly Lee Owens, MPH; Overmono, Erika de Casier and Nick Leon b2b Verraco, Adriatique, Anjunadeep, Moby and Michael Bibi. 

Nothing sums up the best of London’s balmy, thriving summers quite like the noble sunflower. The clue’s in the name, after all: during the part of the year where we’re blessed with the most of those sweet, sweet rays, that’s when we see the most of these golden, spindly, great-vibe giants. There are plenty of dazzling pick-your-own sunflower fields within very easy reach of London. Before you head off on a sunny adventure, make sure to check in with these sites in advance to be sure of fresh crops and full blooms – Mother Nature is an unruly and unpredictable force.

In the middle of Disability Pride Month, BFI Southbank is putting on a programme that will showcase the best of disabled filmmaking, creativity and community. The weekend will feature the world premiere of documentary D-PUNK from the D-Punk Collective, the UK premier of Sundance selected film Joybubbles and the European festival premiere of comedy Lone Wolves by Ryan Cunningham which stars autistic writer-performer Matt Foss. On the final day of the fest, there’ll be a curation of short films platforming disabled-led animation, comedies and documentaries focused on resisting ableism. 

For a novel about Edinburgh heroin addicts written in dense Scottish dialogue, Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting has proved to be a remarkably enduring cultural artefact: a book (with numerous sequels), a film, a cult stage play and now – 33 years on – a musical written by Welsh himself. The truth, of course, is that Danny Boyle’s film is its most iconic and definitive form, which this musical pretty much acknowleges: its song list will mix tracks by Welsh plus collaborator Stephen McGuinness with bangers from the movie’s iconic Britpop-era soundtrack.

It’s hard to exactly imagine a musical about heroin addicted criminals in ’90s Edinburgh ending up as a Les Mis-style long-runner, but the show is directed by Caroline Jay Ranger, who has made a very solid fist of directing the live versions of Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses – Trainspotting is significantly edgier source material, but the film was a big hit and they’re clearly leaning into nostalgia for it. Don’t expect any star names, but the lead role of semi-likeable casualty Renton (aka the Ewan McGregor role) goes to Scots actor Robbie Scott (pictured).

This magic extravaganza is inspired by the improbably successful ‘white collar crime fighting magicians’ Now You See Me series of films, although rather than a play or musical it’s very much ‘some guys doing spectacular magic tricks in the loose guise of the films’ Four Horsemen’. It’s a big glitzy spectacle that’s wowed audiences in Sydney (where it originates) and Singapore and now it’s headed our way for a summer 2026 stint.

‘Our’ Horsemen will be illusionist Enzo Weyne, escapologist Andrew Basso, ‘dynamic rising star of modern magic’ Gabriella Lester and ‘award-winning British magician and master storyteller’ Matthew Pomeroy.

On Saturday July 25, central London will turn pink and blue as London Trans+ Pride celebrates its eighth year. Each year, it's been getting bigger and more central to the city's Pride celebrations, offering a heartening display of queer solidarity at a time when trans rights are continually under threat.

So it's high time you showed up, whether you're part of the trans+ community or an ally. Full details haven't yet been confirmed, but in previous years, a parade has marched through central London, from Trafalgar Square to Hyde Park Corner’s Wellington Arch. Since 2019, the event has sought to honour the memory of trans lives taken, uphold the next generation of trans revolutionaries and support crucial trans rights.

 Open water swimming has been a spring and summer fixture at Canary Wharf’s Eden Dock for the past couple of years already, but now it’s becoming permanent, just in time for the summer. First announced in September, and due to open in late June, Sea Lanes has been built by the team behind the very successful Sea Lanes Brighton, the UK’s first National Open Water Swimming Centre.

The open air fresh water lido, which is 50 metres in length and 1.3 metres deep, features six lanes swimming lanes designed to cater to all ages and capabilities, from family dips to serious cold-water plunges. Who’s ready for an alfresco dip among the skyscrapers?

Another London summer beckons: clouds clearing, days lengthening, an imaginative structure being erected in Kensington Gardens. Mexican architecture firm LANZA atelier has been chosen to design this 2026 Serpentine Pavilion, which features a ‘crinkle-crankle’ wall. Traditional structures seen in English architecture from the 18th century, these wavy partitions temper climate, create shelter, and are ideal for growing fruit. And fittingly, they’re also known as serpentine walls. 

The prestigious architectural commission celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2026, with a landmark series of talks programmed in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the charitable organisation founded by the late Iraqi-British architect, who designed the inaugural Pavilion 25 years ago. The programme kicks off with an Architects’ Talk hosted by Hans Ulrich Obrist, with a series of Family Days featuring hands-on workshops, creative activities and performances for all ages scheduled throughout the summer. Check out the Serpentine’s website for further details in due course. 

Outdoor cinema season is up and running in the capital. There’s a summer of moonlit movies ahead in an array of scenic park, rooftop and riverside spots and the projectors will soon start whirring at Rooftop Cinema Club, Adventure Cinema and many others. On the slate for 2026 are the usual mix of crowdpleasers, cult classics and recent blockbuster hits. But expect some exciting new additions from the past 12 months, too, including Sinners, Wicked: For Good, One Battle After Another and Weapons, to Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, La La Land and all the old favourites.

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A longstanding Soho tradition – going back more than half a century – this annual neighbourhood knees-up is organised by volunteers from the Soho Society, and sees the garden of Soho’s St Anne’s Church bursting with live music and entertainment. 

The main draw of the day is the Soho Waiters’ Race. A tradition dating back to 1955, it starts at 3.15pm outside the French House, and sees a gaggle of waiters pelt through the streets of Soho, each holding a tray stacked with a bottle of champers, a glass and a napkin, all of which must be intact when they cross the finish line Another crowd favourite is the Soho Dog Show, which awards eight different prizes including ‘Dog who looks most like their owner’. 

Alongside this, visitors can expect six hours of entertainment including live music, snail racing, a spaghetti-eating contest, a tug-of-war, a human fruit machine, foodie stalls, and The French House Bar.

Best of all? It’s absolutely free to attend, although the gardens have a maximum capacity of 500, so turn up nice and early or be prepared to queue.

Feeling thirsty? Desperate for a funky sour, cheeky saison or a fruity IPA? You’re in luck. The Capital’s biggest beer celebration is back for 2026, taking place at Southwark Park, for four-hour sessions of non-stop-beer-drinking bliss. Set over two days, you’ll get to sample London’s best beers as well as some international standouts, including our faves Gipsy Hill, Verdant, Deya and more. Hungry? The food line up is pretty serious too, this year featuring Meltdown Cheeseburgers, Bone Daddies and Chick N’ Sours. A ticket gets you a four-hour session and access to more than 800 beers from over 100 brewers, and there are group discounts available too. All the beer is included in the ticket price. Happy drinking, folks. 

Dulwich Picture Gallery's big summer exhibition will be an intriguing contrast with the pastoral landscapes found in its permanent collection. Portrait of a City is all about American urban life, as documented by photographers between 1907 and 2012. It'll offer a fascinating insight into how big cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco grew from low-rise communities into towering assemblages of skyscrapers and multi-lane traffic. Photos from big names including Diane Arbus, Lewis Hine and Dorothea Lange will chart the faces and sights of cities in flux.

Even before Andy Warhol plastered Marilyn Monroe's pouting image all over gallery walls, this movie icon's image was pretty inescapable. She's the 20th century's greatest sex symbol, instantly recognisable by her platinum bouffant hair and scarlet lipstick. But this new BFI season is determined to look beyond her famous face, and to help audiences get to know the real Monroe: an endlessly intuitive and expressive actor, and a resourceful creative who set up her own studio in a patriarchal Hollywood.

This season is a chance to see Monroe on the big screen in her centenary year. There'll also be plenty of opportunities to immerse yourself in her world, and discuss her legacy on and off the screen. 

Returning to Walpole Park on July 18, As One in the Park is the LGBTQ+ festival bringing four stages of music, cabaret, cocktails and full-throttle party energy to west London. Brazilian superstar Pabllo Vittar headlines with a UK-exclusive Club Vittar takeover, while drag icon Miss Vanjie joins house legend Todd Terry and Gok Wan on a stacked line-up built for dancing all day long. Expect one huge summer celebration.

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With its 210-foot tower, and walls adorned with over a hundred varieties of marble, Westminster Cathedral is already a sight to behold, but it’ll be looking more spectacular than ever this July, when this visual show wuill shed new light on the iconic building, quite literally. Known for hosting dazzling immersive experiences at World Heritage sites across the globe, Luminiscence will take over the neo-byzantine cathedral this summer, with an visual experience journeying through the history of the Big Smoke, told using light projections mapped onto its grand interiors, plus a voiceover by Hugh Bonneville, and classical hits from the likes of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Bach, performed live by the Lux Aeterna choir. It promises to be a truly special opportunity to familiarise yourself with one of London’s most iconic landmarks. 

This is a fun one: Death Note the Musical is an adaptation of the hit manga that tells the story of one Light Yagami, a brilliant student who is given a notebook by a capricious magical being. The book has one very specific function: anyone whose name is written in it will die within 40 seconds. It’s not your everyday story, that's for sure, but that goes for a lot of musicals, and you can actually kind of see it working. It's had various Asian productions over the last decade, but this new one from director Stephen Whitson is easily its biggest Western outing to date.

The Royal Academy’s first Summer Exhibition opened in 1769. That was the same year that Captain James Cook began his first voyage to the Pacific. In other words, this open-submission exhibition has been around for a very long time. This year, British sculptor Ryan Gander is at the helm, working under the broad curatorial theme of ‘Interconnectness’. Which is just as well, given there are nearly 2,000 works that he’s chosen to fill the galleries of the London institution.

The result is that there really is something here for everyone. Paintings, sculptures, paintings of sculptures, and sculptures of paintings,The Summer Exhibition rewards patience, not efficiency. Give yourself time to wander as if you do, somewhere among the thousands of works you may discover your new favourite artist.

From swanky skyscrapers to casual warehouse hangouts and hidden pub terraces, London has a real crush on a rooftop bar. Sometimes we’re even blessed with perfect weather when we’re up there. To enjoy natural high, there are all kinds of rooftops which offer a winning combination of incredible city views and perfect drinks, be they on top of carparks, or hotels.

So take your pick from spots in stylish Shoreditch, buzzing Soho and Covent Garden, hipster haven Peckham and more – it’s time to soak up those sunsets. Some are only open in the summer, but quite a few are year-rounders, where you can sit under heaters, or, if you’re hardcore, in the brisk London breeze. If you’d rather something a little more grounded, then have a look at London’s best beer gardens. 

With its real life spacecraft and other impressive extraterrestrial paraphernalia, Science Museum is about as close as you can get to going to actual space within walking distance of the Piccadilly line. And your proximity to the cosmos is about to increase a heck of a lot with the arrival of this 40-minute free-roaming VR experience, which will take you into the deepest and most spectacular parts of the galaxy.

Recently debuted in Washington DC, and developed in tandem with the US’s flagship Smithsonian Museum and its Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Science Museum’s latest attraction has some real scientific credentials, so while the literally otherworldly scenes of space you find yourself stepping into are digitally crafted, they’re meticulously crafted on the backs of decades of real scientific data, rather than just AI slop. 

Your journey starts off with a tour of our world’s observatories before heading up to the Hubble Space Telescope… and then far beyond. Diving headlong into the cosmos – we’re told you will ‘witness the birth and death of stars, explore distant galaxies, and come face-to-face with a black hole’. Just don’t go falling in.

It may be known for its sleepy scent and soothing properties, but there’s nothing dozy about the explosion of colour that happens around London’s lavender fields each summer. There are several farms dedicated to the mauve blooms just outside the capital, in Kent, Surrey and Hertfordshire. Immerse yourself in a purple haze this summer by visiting one of London’s fragrant lavender gardens, or head out of town on a day trip to find sweeping fields of the stuff.

The UK's annual festival line-up is full to bursting, so any new entrant onto the field will need to stand out to survive. And luckily, Hush Festival does just that. Festival founders Peter and Shabira Cassidy are determined to bring a quieter kind of fest to their East Ham community, and they've teamed up with Cocteau Twins ex-member Simone Raymonde to curate a resolutely chilled line-up, performed to a seated audience.

Headliners include Cate Le Bon, This Is The Kit, and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah doing a piano and voice set. The festival ethos is all about being present and listen deeply, so as well as being encouraged to sit comfortably and listen, audiences will also be offered talks on mindfulness and sound meditations. So it's certainly not a festival for lovers of mud, moshpits and general chaos, but anyone looking for a sedate dose of musical transcendence is sure to find it here. 

If you don’t have kids you probably don’t know who or what Dog Man is and you probably don’t need to know who or what Dog Man is – Dog Man: The Musical is quite possibly not for you.

But in any case, it is of course an all-singing stage adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s meta graphic novels for primary schoolers, a wilfully dumb story of a police officer whose head is indeed replaced with that of a dog, making for a somwhat improbable crimefighter whose chief nemesis is Petey, a villainous cat supervillain.

It doesn’t exactly sounds like the stuff of classic musical theatre, but by all account this stage version – by Kevin Del Aguila and Brad Alexander – was a real cult treat off-Broadway and now Jen Wineman’s original US production is getting a UK premiere, as a touring production that will play a summer stint at the Southbank Centre.

It was announced earlier this year that rather than just cease all activities during its current period of closure and refurbishment, the tiny, historic Arts Theatre in the West End was going to try something a little different: it was going to build a temporary theatre that at 594 seats would be almost 250 seats bigger than the parent one. It would be next to Marble Arch, in roughly the spot where beloved London folly the Mound once stood.

The Arts at Marble Arch will open in July with a return to London for Heathers (Jul 9-Aug 22), the much loved cult musical adapted from the Winona Ryder/Christian Slater black comedy that has played several seasons in London, mostly at The Other Palace. It’ll christen TAAMA with a limited, 52-performance only run that will predate a UK tour. 

Dig out your best cosplay for this annual festival, which brings a touch of Tokyo to west London. Hyper Japan is the UK’s largest celebration of Japanese culture, taking place at Hammersmith's Olympia Events space each summer. This year’s headline draws are performances from anime soundtrack regulars Queen Bee and tiktok dance stars avantgardey. 

Across three days, there’ll also be Japanese arts and crafts workshops, martial arts classes, performances from acclaimed Japanese musicians, a market with artworks and heritage crafts, lots of Japanese garb for sale and, of course, an irresistible array of Japanese food to sink your teeth into. 

Three legendary south London nightclubs are coming together this summer to create a mega series of shindigs, proving that south London really is the capital’s clubbing epicentre right now. Phonox, MOT and Jumbi will join forces for 13 events taking place throughout May to August; audiences will be moved between venues, going from outside to inside and day to night. Circulate has curated a stellar line-up featuring a who’s who of world-class DJs including DJ Nobu, Young Marco, Soichi Terada, Angel D'lite, Optimo (Espacio), Derrick Carter, Josey Rebelle, Heléna Starr, Gerd Janson and many more. 

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