The festival is held annually on the middle weekend in September, and takes place on the south bank riverside walkway between the London Eye and Tower Bridge. The event features music but is much, much more than that with lots of entertainment and other activities happening, there are a lot of art installations dotted about.

Many Thames Festival activities are based on public participation. The festival commissions new work, and transforms unusual spaces on and around the River Thames with a mixture of street arts, performance, carnival, pyrotechnics, illuminations, art installations, exhibitions, river events, massed choirs, circus, music and dance, food and feasting. The finale is a magical illuminated Night Procession that winds along the north and south banks of the Thames, followed by a fireworks display fired from the center of the river itself.

The Mayor’s Thames Festival is London’s largest free arts festival, a spectacular open-air celebration of the city and its river and is firmly established as a highlight in London’s cultural calendar.

Every year major London roads are closed to traffic as the Thames Festival reaches its climax with the Night Procession, a spectacle that has over 2,000 musicians, dancers and performers from across the country  with lanterns, illuminated costumes and stunning structures. The Procession takes place on the Sunday starting at 7.15pm on Victoria Embankment, travels east crossing the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, and finishes behind the Royal National Theatre and Southbank Centre.

• The Mayor’s Thames Festival is a free event, open to all, produced by the Thames Festival Trust, a not-for-profit independent charitable trust.
• The event is primarily funded by private sector partnerships: 60% is paid by a number of sponsors (Barclaycard is our principal partner); 22% by Arts Council England, the Mayor of London and other public bodies and the remaining 18% comes from income generated on-site over the festival weekend.
• Education and Outreach work – the Festival has four key ongoing education projects with schools and community groups focussing on art/design, the environment, music education and food growing.

“The Thames Festival is a great event, a lively and magical celebration of London and its river”
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London