About the festival

“A totally multicultural and all-embracing celebration of London and the Thames...
a spectacular and hugely enjoyable event that also succeeds in promoting environmental awareness and community spirit”        Visit London

The Mayor’s Thames Festival is London’s largest outdoor arts festival - a spectacular event, free to all, which brings together Londoners of all ages and from all communities to celebrate their city and the River Thames.

The festival commissions new work, and transforms outdoor spaces on and around the River Thames with a mixture of music, dancing, street arts, river races, carnival, pyrotechnics, art installations, massed choirs, food and feasting. The finale is a magical illuminated Night Carnival that winds along the south and north banks of the Thames, followed by a fireworks display fired from the centre of the river itself.

Participation and the active involvement of the public is at the festival’s heart, and the festival showcases London’s incredible creativity; in 2010 alone we commissioned 94 artworks, worked with 570 artists and arts groups, and engaged over 10,000 young people via the festival’s year-round education and outreach programme. 

Highly valued by the Mayor of London, London boroughs and the Arts Council, the Thames Festival is one of the capital’s most-loved events, giving Londoners a fabulous free weekend of arts, spectacle and entertainment, and generating a feel-good factor that is second to none.

The festival takes place every September on the River Thames, the riverside walkways, roads, bridges, docks and public open spaces from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge and beyond. It is delivered by the Thames Festival Trust, a not-for-profit charitable trust with an independent board of trustees.

Thames Festival Trust is a founding member of River//Cities, an international platform that aims to increase the impact of culture on urban waterways and waterfronts.

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