Things to do in London in November 2026

November is the month London stops pretending it is still autumn. The bonfires are lit in the first week, the Christmas lights go up from the 4th, and four major exhibitions open within a fortnight of each other. Ian McKellen returns to the stage in Hackney Wick, Pitchfork and the EFG London Jazz Festival take over close to a hundred venues between them, and on the 28th the London Museum opens its new home in Smithfield after almost four years closed.

For music lovers

Pitchfork Music Festival London

Image courtesy of Pitchfork Music Festival

#FLODown: The sixth edition of Pitchfork Music Festival London takes place across more than ten venues, including MOTH Club, KOKO, EartH, Hackney Church, Village Underground, the Roundhouse and the Royal Festival Hall. Headliners include The Avalanches, Tortoise, Aja Monet, Olof Dreijer, Hania Rani, The Radio Dept., Actress and Noname, who performs a "10 years of Telefone" set. The Dalston Takeover on Saturday 7 November is the closest the week comes to a conventional festival day, with one £42.11 wristband covering EartH, Shacklewell Arms, The Victoria, Cafe OTO and St Matthias Church from 6pm.

Date: 2 - 8 November 2026. Location: venues across Dalston, Hackney, Camden, Shoreditch and the South Bank, Price: per event, varies, Dalston Takeover £42.11. Book now.

A State of Trance at Drumsheds

#FLODown: A State of Trance lands at Drumsheds for the first indoor ASOT festival ever staged in the UK, marking 25 years of the brand. Armin van Buuren headlines, across the X, Y and Z rooms, and also goes face to face with Giuseppe Ottaviani. Ferry Corsten, Cosmic Gate, Ben Hemsley and Andrew Rayel are also on the bill. It is 18 and over.

Date: Saturday 14 November 2026, 1pm - 10.30pm. Location: Drumsheds, 6 Glover Drive, Meridian Water, London N18 3HF
Price: £31 to £152. Book now.

Charlotte de Witte at Ironworks

#FLODown: The Belgian DJ and producer takes over Ironworks for her only UK show this year, closing the venue's first season. Ironworks is a new East London venue at Thames Wharf in E16, which opened with six artist-led day-to-night takeovers from October. This one is from 2pm to 10pm.

Date: Sunday 1 November 2026, 2pm - 10pm. Location: Ironworks, Thames Wharf, Scarab Close, London E16 1AF. Price: final release £62.45, early entry before 4pm £50.10, low or no income early entry £28.15. Book now.

EFG London Jazz Festival

Image courtesy of EFG London Jazz Festival

#FLODown: The 34th EFG London Jazz Festival takes place over ten days and both weekends. It is on across more than 70 venues in over half of London's boroughs, and the programme includes Goldie, Melody Gardot, Morcheeba, Samara Joy, Fatoumata Diawara, Mariza, Ben Folds, Caravan Palace, GoGo Penguin and Branford Marsalis with Dianne Reeves. A good portion of the programme is free, including the Barbican FreeStage on Level G, the Clore Ballroom at the Southbank Centre and Milton Court at the Guildhall School.

Date: 13 - 22 November 2026. Location: venues across London. Price: from £5, many events free. Book now.

For art lovers

London Museum opens at Smithfield

London Museum Planning Image © Secchi Smith

#FLODown: London Museum, formerly the Museum of London, opens its new home in Smithfield on Saturday 28 November, pulling together several historic buildings and drawing on over seven million objects. It will open late on Fridays and Saturdays, and there is free interactive sensory storytelling and performance on Sundays on the Great Fire, Roman London and other hidden stories. General entry to the permanent galleries is free, with timed tickets, most bookable online and some reserved for walk-ins. The inaugural season, London Tastes, is co-curated by Ruby Tandoh and Jonathan Nunn. It is a celebration of London's food culture across a series of events and a spotlight exhibition, which looks at how appetites have changed as the city has evolved, from Covent Garden market and Brick Lane to pie and mash shops and chicken shop culture. It will also focus on the global influences behind the city's food. It is on until 31 August 2027.

Date: opens Saturday 28 November 2026.
Location: General Market, West Smithfield, London EC1A 9AG. Price: free, timed tickets. londonmuseum.org.uk

Constantinople to Istanbul: One City, Two Empires

Constantinople to Istanbul. 'The Sultan riding out in procession to Friday Prayers', watercolour by anonymous Greek artist, about 1809, Istanbul, Turkey. Image V&A.

#FLODown: The first exhibition in the UK to tell the story of the city in full is to open at V&A South Kensington on 7 November. It will follow the sixteen centuries in which the city, once called Constantinople and now Istanbul, was the capital of two successive empires, the Byzantine from AD 330 to 1453 and the Ottoman from 1453 to 1922. More than 200 objects will be shown, many of them in the UK for the first time, with loans from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art in Istanbul, the Benaki Museum, the Treasury of San Marco in Venice and the British Library. Among them are Gentile Bellini's portrait of Mehmed II from 1479, a jewelled belt from the tomb of Selim II and the tenth-century Veroli Casket.

Date: 7 November 2026 - 9 May 2027. Location: V&A South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL. Price: from £22, concessions available. Book now.

Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury

Vanessa Bell Interior with the Artist's Daughter c.1935-36. The Charleston Trust. © 2026 Estate of Vanessa Bell. All rights reserved.

#FLODown: More than 250 works by two artists who lived and worked alongside each other for fifty years will be brought together at Tate Britain, with portraits, still lives, landscapes and decorative work on furniture and ceramics, along with a restaging of Duncan Grant's studio, brought from Charleston, their house in Sussex. The exhibition, opening on 12 November, will also include their work with the Omega Workshops and set them alongside Picasso, Matisse and the Post-Impressionists they looked to.

Date: 12 November 2026 - 11 April 2027
Location: Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG. Price: £20, £5 for Tate Collective. Book now.

The Nue Black Aesthetic

‘Strange Notes' 2025 by Giles Tettey Nartey. Courtesy of Giles Tettey Nartey.

#FLODown: Sixteen contemporary Black designers who are reshaping the British design landscape will be brought together at the Design Museum from 6 November, with more than 100 objects across furniture, architecture, fashion and installation. It is guest-curated by Charlene Prempeh, founder of A Vibe Called Tech.

Date: 6 November 2026 - 8 August 2027. Location: The Design Museum, 224 - 238 Kensington High Street, Kensington, London W8 6AG. Price: From £15.29. Concessions available. Book now.

Nan Goldin: You Never Did Anything Wrong

Electric Gaja, Paris Nan Goldin, Electric Gaja, Paris, 2010. Copyright Nan Goldin. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian.

#FLODown: The American artist and activist Nan Goldin returns to the Hayward Gallery with her first institutional exhibition in the UK since 2002. Four recent film works will be shown together, Memory Lost, Stendhal Syndrome, You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part I and You Never Did Anything Wrong, Part II, the last of them shown for the first time, alongside photographic stills and archival material. The exhibition is to open on 24 November and the films deal with intimacy, endurance, political struggle and the conditions in which people, animals and the land exist.

Date: 24 November 2026 - 7 March 2027. Location: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Price: £19, concessions available, Southbank Centre Members go free, with 750 tickets at £7.50 from 24 November to 6 December. Book now.

Click here to discover our guide to art exhibitions opening in London in November 2026.

For theatre lovers

Lear at the Yard Theatre

Ian McKellen. Image courtesy of The Yard Theatre.

#FLODown: Lear is a new play by Simon Stephens and Jay Miller, made from Shakespeare’s text and every conversation the two of them recorded while writing it. It will be performed by Ian McKellen with an ensemble of knights, in his first major stage role since a fall in 2024. The play is part of the opening season at the Yard’s new building in Hackney Wick, a 220-seat curved auditorium built from reused brick. Previews are 17 - 30 November.

Date: 17 November 2026 - 2 January 2027. Location: The Yard Theatre, Queen's Yard, White Post Lane, London E9 5EN. Price: £12.50 to £92.50 including a £2.50 booking fee, with Legend seats from £150 to £300. Book now.

Cloud 9 at the National Theatre

Cloud 9 opens at the National Theatre. Image courtesy of National Theatre

#FLODown: Cloud 9 opens in Victorian Africa, where Clive is a colonial administrator and patriarch, before the family turn up a hundred years later in 1970s London. Seven actors share the roles between them, with parts cast across gender and across the century that separates the two halves. Charlotte Ritchie, Rebecca Humphries, Sam Troughton, Tom Mothersdale, Eloka Ivo, Ellen Robertson and Stuart Thompson are in the company, with Dominic Cooke directing.

Date: 2 November 2026 - 13 January 2027. Location: Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, Upper Ground, South Bank, London SE1 9PX. Price: from £25, plus a £4 per order booking fee. Book now.

A Christmas Carol at the Old Vic

A Christmas Carol. Image credit Photographer Manuel Harlan

#FLODown: Matthew Warchus' production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol returns to the Old Vic, adapted by Jack Thorne, with Giles Terera as Scrooge. It is around two hours including a 20-minute interval and is suitable for ages 8 and over.

Date: 10 November 2026 - 9 January 2027. Location: Old Vic, 103 The Cut, London SE1 8NB. Price: previews and off-peak £19.50 to £81.50, peak £19.50 to £91.50. Book now

For bonfire night

Alexandra Palace Fireworks & Drone Festival

Image courtesy of Alexandra Palace.

#FLODown: The festival takes place across a full weekend for the first time. Saturday is the party night with a display at 8pm and a headline DJ set from Eats Everything, and Sunday is a lower-capacity Family Fun Day with an earlier 6pm display. Celestial send up hundreds of choreographed drones before the fireworks on both nights. There is a German Bier Festival in the Great Hall, plus a bonfire, funfair, ice skating and street food.

Date: 7 - 8 November 2026, gates 4pm. Location: Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, London N22 7AY. Price: from £11.50, under-10s £5 on the Sunday. fireworks.london

Battersea Park Fireworks

Image courtesy of Battersea Park Fireworks

#FLODown: Wandsworth Council's display is the biggest in south London, with two nights of live performances, fairground rides and happy hours. Rudimental DJ and Conjunto Sabroso play on the Saturday before the 8.30pm fireworks, and Arcadia's Lords of Lightning and Fearlessly Taylor play on the Sunday before the 7pm display. Tickets are advance only and the site is card only.

Date: 7 - 8 November 2026, gates 6pm Saturday and 4.30pm Sunday. Location: Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ. Price: general admission from £16.70. batterseaparkfireworks.com

Festive events

Christmas lights switch-ons

Carnaby Street, Christmas lights. Image courtesy of Carnaby

#FLODown: The switch-ons happen in stages through the month, each with its own street event. Carnaby Street turns on Press Play on Christmas on 4 November and Regent Street and St James's turn on The Spirits of Christmas on 5 November. Marylebone Village has stalls, festive food and drink, family entertainment and a 55-foot Ferris wheel on 11 November. Covent Garden and Bond Street both switch on, on 12 November, with 93,000 LED lights in a Crown Jewels design on Bond Street and a live brass band. Leadenhall Market lights up at 6pm on 19 November, with a light tunnel through Beehive Passage, live music and a flurry of snow.

Date: 4 - 19 November 2026, various dates. Location: Carnaby W1F, Regent Street W1B, Marylebone High Street W1U, Covent Garden WC2E, Bond Street W1S, Leadenhall Market EC3V. Price: free, no booking needed.

Skate at Somerset House

Skate returns to Somerset House from 11 November. Image credit Somerset House,

#FLODown: Skate at Somerset House with Virgin Atlantic Holidays returns to the Strand courtyard, and this year's edition leans harder into the music and late-night programming that has come to define it. On weekend mornings there is a Skate School for adults and teens and a Kids' Club for ages 6 to 12, both coached by the team behind Team GB's rising skaters, and there are reduced-capacity relaxed sessions and dedicated wheelchair skating sessions. A small number of tickets for each session are held back for the box office in Seamen's Hall and sold from opening until noon, up to six per person, so a sold-out day is not always lost.

Date: 11 November 2026 - 10 January 2027. Location: Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA. Price: adults £13 to £28.50, children £11 to £15, plus a £1.50 per ticket fee. Book now

Christmas at Kew

Christmas at Kew. Image courtesy of Kew Gardens

#FLODown: Christmas at Kew is a 3km after-dark trail through the gardens, with light installations, music, street food, warming drinks and a traditional fairground. New for 2026 are adults-only evenings on 3 and 9 December. It is on selected dates, with no trail on 16, 23 or 28 November or on 25 December. Entry is timed and capacity is limited, and Kew says advance booking is essential.

Date: 13 November 2026 - 3 January 2027, selected dates, 4.20pm to 10pm. Location: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, London TW9 3AE. Price: adult £29.50 to £37, child aged 4 to 15 £20 to £24, family £89 to £108, under-4s free but need a ticket, Kew members from £25.23. Book now.

For families

Balloon Museum presents EUPHOЯIA, Art is in the Air

Ballon Museum. Hyperstudio. Image courtesy of Ballon Museum

#FLODown: Balloon Museum have opened their latest exhibition, EUPHOЯIA, Art is in the Air, at ExCeL London. It is an interactive contemporary art exhibition bringing together large-scale installations by more than ten international artists, including Turner Prize winner Martin Creed, A.A. Murakami, Camille Walala, Karina Smigla-Bobinski and SpY, and it treats air as an artistic language in its own right. Adult-only sessions are on Wednesdays from 5pm and Fridays from 7pm.

Date: open now. Location: Balloon Museum, Chapter 1, Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway, London E16 1XL. Price: from £26 for adults, £20 for children, family tickets from £59. Book now

The Jungle Book at the National Theatre

The Jungle Book returns to London from 13 November. Image courtesy of National Theatre.

#FLODown: The Jungle Book, a new stage version of Rudyard Kipling's stories by Anupama Chandrasekhar, is to open in the Olivier in November. The action is relocated to the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans in eastern India, with Hiran Abeysekera as Mowgli and puppetry by Finn Caldwell and Nick Barnes. Indhu Rubasingham directs and it is recommended for ages 7 and over.

Date: 13 November 2026 - 6 February 2027. Location: Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, Upper Ground, South Bank, London SE1 9PX. Price: previews £20 to £65, Monday to Thursday £25 to £93, Friday and Saturday £25 to £105, with £25 tickets limited to two per customer plus two more if buying for under-18s. Book now

Pinocchio at Shakespeare's Globe

Aya Nakamura as Puppeteer and Lee Braithwaite as Pinocchio in Pinocchio c. Johan Persson

#FLODown: Pinocchio, the family musical by Charlie Josephine and Jim Fortune, is returning to the Globe for the festive season after its 2025 debut. It is recommended for ages 5 and over and is 2 hours 10 minutes including an interval. The Globe is open-air, so wrap up.

Date: 28 November 2026 - 3 January 2027. Location: Shakespeare's Globe, 21 New Globe Walk, London SE1 9DT. Price: from £5 standing in the yard up to £78 for gallery seating. Book now.

The Snowman at the Peacock Theatre

The Snowman, 2024 © Joe Higham's Reportage

#FLODown: The Snowman is to open at the Peacock Theatre, Sadler's Wells' West End house, on 21 November 2026 in a new staging co-produced by Sadler's Wells and Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Directed and choreographed by Will Tuckett, it is based on Raymond Briggs' book and set to Howard Blake's score, including Walking in the Air.

Date: 21 November 2026 - 3 January 2027. Location: Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street, London WC2A 2HT. Price: from £22. Book now.