August events in London

For a lot of Londoners, Notting Hill Carnival on the August Bank Holiday Weekend flashes by in a blaze of feathers, Red Stripe and tinnitus. To those who make it happen, it’s a year-round operation to create one of the biggest and oldest street parties in the world. This Carnival weekend, it's expected that more than two million people will flock to west London to dance in the streets of W11. It’s free to join family day on the Sunday and the Monday which is for the hard partiers. It’s a celebration of freedom and Caribbean culture, with an iconic parade showcasing the best of mas, soca, calypso, steel bands and soundsystems. What are you waiting for? 

Paris is hosting the 2024 Olympics until August 11, so that means nearly two glorious weeks this month to be inspired to put your body on the line, too. You can do that by finding a screening in the city, grabbing a drink and some snacks and cheering on the top athletes taking part. Just make sure you stretch before you reach for your pint first.

You can always rely on the annual free Greenwich + Docklands International Festival of outdoor theatre and performance art spectaculars to announce itself with a proper ‘how are they going to do that?’ piece of programming. This year the festival will return with a theme of All Change, with its 17-day programme focusing on both activism and climate change. It’s already obvious that the big 2024 showstopper is likely to be Australian physical theatre company Legs on the Wall’s ‘THAW’ (Aug 24-25), an epic eight hour aerial performance staged on a two-and-a-half-tonne block of ice suspended high in the air by a crane.

Nothing says summer quite like the towering stalks and glowing yellow petals of the noble sunflower. Get neck-deep in heliotropic heaven at these golden fields full of custard-yellow blooms, which are at their peak from August to September.

Beer gardens are one of the best things about London. There’s no finer way to spend a sunny (or even not-so-sunny) afternoon in the capital, than supping on a couple of cold boys under the city’s azure-ish sky. If you’re looking to sink some pints in the breezy great outdoors, we’ve got you covered with our tried-and-tested list of the city’s best beer gardens.