Things to Do in London in October: The Month London Peaks, Then Goes Dark

In this guide

October is the month London’s cultural year peaks, and then, in its last week, the month the city quietly turns the lights off. For the first three weeks that is a good trade: the summer crowds have gone, the autumn exhibitions and festivals are landing one after another, and the weather — cooler and wetter than September, but not yet given up on — still allows an evening outdoors.

Five ticketed art fairs run in the same city on the same days, in the middle of the month, and it is the densest cultural weekend of the year. Frieze London and Frieze Masters take opposite ends of Regent’s Park; PAD occupies Berkeley Square; 1-54 fills Somerset House; the Affordable Art Fair sets up in Battersea Park — and all of it lands inside the BFI London Film Festival’s closing weekend. In 2026 that means Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 October carries all five fairs plus the festival’s last four days at once. Hotel rates know it. The honest counterweight, and the thing most guides skip, is that Frieze Sculpture — the free outdoor half of Frieze — sits in the same park from mid-September to the start of November, no ticket required.

Then the month has a hinge, and everything after it plays by different rules. The clocks go back at 2am on the last Sunday of October — in 2026 that’s the 25th — and an hour of evening disappears overnight: sunset drops from about 5.50pm on the Saturday to about 4.48pm on the Sunday. That same Sunday, MCM Comic Con finishes its run at ExCeL and Diwali on the Square fills Trafalgar Square. School half term starts the next morning. Halloween — a Saturday in 2026, the best possible night for it — closes it all out. So the last eight days of the month are dark by teatime, full of children, and hosting the biggest free cultural event and the biggest convention of the month, all at once. If you can choose your dates, the first ten days of October are the easier trip.

The story that carries over from September

The Bayeux Tapestry: your own tickets are gone, but there’s a free way in

British Museum, Room 30 · exhibition runs to 11 July 2027

September’s guide told you the Bayeux Tapestry had arrived in London for the first time in nearly a thousand years. The update, checked on the museum’s own site this week: if you are visiting in October, you cannot buy a ticket for your own trip. Every ticket for 10 September to 31 December 2026, including the members’ priority allocation, is sold out.

What you can do instead is free. The Bayeux Tapestry Opening Festival runs across the second weekend of the month: Bayeux Late: medieval making on Friday 9 October, 5.30pm to 8.30pm, drop in any time, non-ticketed; and the Big Bayeux Bash on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 October, a weekend of free family activities inspired by the medieval world, first-come first-served. Contributors to the Friday session include Matilda Ngute of The Textile Club, Olivia Swarthout of Weird Medieval Guys, and master embroidery artist Bella Lane.

Neither event includes entry to the Tapestry itself — the museum says so explicitly on both listings, and it is worth printing plainly, because it is the one thing that will catch people out. If you want priority entry during the festival’s busy periods, book a free timed museum-entry ticket in advance; the main entrance is on Great Russell Street and there is a security and bag check.

For your own visit, the two dates to know are 6 October, when members’ priority booking reopens, and 21 October, the next general release — both covering visits from 1 January to 31 March 2027. The exhibition’s hours are unchanged: Sunday to Wednesday 10am to 6pm, Thursday to Saturday 10am to 9pm.

The collision in the middle of the month

The fairs share the week on purpose — it is known as Frieze Week — and the film festival’s closing weekend lands on top of them by coincidence of its own twelve-day shape.

Frieze London and Frieze Masters — Regent’s Park, 14 to 18 October

Two ticketed fairs at opposite ends of the park: Frieze London, contemporary work, off Park Square West, NW1 4LL; Frieze Masters, antiquity to the late twentieth century, on Gloucester Green, NW1 4HA, near London Zoo. A free shuttle runs between them roughly every fifteen minutes.

Wednesday is invitation-only at both fairs. Thursday morning is a members-and-invitation preview; general admission starts Thursday afternoon. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are open to anyone with a ticket — so the public fair is really three and a half days, not five.

Pricing is tiered steeply by day: Thursday’s first preview runs £130 to £150 (£210–£250 for both fairs), Friday’s preview £63 to £95 depending on entry time, and weekend day tickets £38 to £59, with a concession band down to roughly £6–£10. Tickets are online only — a weekend ticket is about a third of the Thursday preview price for the same art with more people in front of it.

Frieze Sculpture — the free one, and the one to actually plan around

The Regent’s Park, English Gardens · free, no ticket, 16 September to 1 November 2026

Almost no guide leads on this, and it is the most useful Frieze fact there is. Frieze Sculpture is a free outdoor exhibition of large-scale work by the same organiser, in the same park, but it is not part of the ticketed fairs — you can walk straight in. The 2026 edition is curated for a fourth year by Fatoş Üstek, in its fourteenth edition since the series began, with around a dozen international artists showing in the English Gardens.

It opened 16 September and runs to 1 November, bracketing the fairs on both sides. If you are not buying a Frieze ticket, this is the Frieze experience anyway — for nothing, at your own pace, for six and a half weeks.

PAD London — Berkeley Square, 13 to 18 October

The UK’s only fair dedicated exclusively to historical and contemporary design, in a pavilion in Mayfair, sister fair to PAD Paris. It opens a day ahead of Frieze and closes on the same Sunday.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair — Somerset House, 15 to 18 October

The leading international fair for contemporary art from Africa and the African diaspora: a Thursday VIP and press preview on 15 October, then public days 16 to 18 October. Somerset House is walkable from the Strand rather than a trek out to Regent’s Park, which makes this the easiest of the satellite fairs to combine with something else in central London.

Affordable Art Fair Battersea (Autumn edition) — Battersea Park, 14 to 18 October

The deliberate counterweight to Frieze, in the same week: contemporary work from more than a hundred galleries, every piece priced within a stated band. There is a spring edition in the same park, so specify “autumn” when you search for it — same week as Frieze, opposite proposition, and the honest answer if you want to buy something rather than look at things you cannot afford.

BFI London Film Festival — the closing weekend lands in the same fortnight

7 to 18 October 2026, the 70th edition

The UK’s largest public film festival closes on the same Sunday Frieze Week ends. General booking runs from 10am on 17 September, so by October the obvious galas are largely gone — but a genuine second chance opens at 10am on 1 October, when the festival releases a batch of held-back tickets, and it is worth more than most people assume. Standard tickets start at £10, or £6 if you are 25 or under through the free BFI 25 & Under scheme. Full dates, prices and the routes into a sold-out screening are in our BFI London Film Festival guide.

BFI Southbank, the festival’s centre of gravity: its box office is where returns and the standby queue are handled.

The rest of October’s annual fixtures

Black History Month — the whole of October

A UK-wide observance — unlike the United States, which marks it in February. London’s programme runs across museums, galleries, libraries and boroughs all month; 2026’s national theme is “Honouring Our Communities.”

Bloomsbury Festival — the whole of October, 40-plus venues

The closest thing October has to Open House, and it runs the entire month rather than a single weekend. Music, performance, exhibitions, talks, walks and workshops across more than forty venues in Bloomsbury — squares, parks, museums, galleries, laboratories and university buildings not normally open to the public. A substantial share of it is free.

Dance Umbrella — three weeks from 7 October

London’s international dance festival, running 7 to 27 October across multiple venues rather than one building — recent editions have used Sadler’s Wells East, the Barbican, Somerset House and Rich Mix, among others. A digital strand of dance films runs on past the live festival, to 30 November, for anyone who cannot get to a theatre.

London Literature Festival — late October into November

The Southbank Centre’s literature festival runs 20 October to 1 November 2026, shaped by a guest curator each year, across the Royal Festival Hall and the smaller Southbank rooms. It crosses the month boundary, so treat this as the start of it rather than the whole thing.

London Restaurant Festival — across the month

The autumn edition of the American Express-led restaurant festival runs across October, with festival menus available at participating restaurants throughout the month rather than in one fixed week, plus separately ticketed one-off dining events. Amex Cardmembers get early access to the ticketed events through a presale that opens in early September.

Asian Art in London — opens 29 October

A city-wide programme of selling exhibitions, auctions, lectures and museum events across the London Asian art trade, running 29 October to 10 November across Mayfair and St James’s galleries, the auction houses and museum partners. It belongs in this guide because it opens in October, even though most of its run falls in November — largely free to walk into the gallery exhibitions.

Sport: three NFL Sundays and England at Wembley

The NFL plays three games in London this month, on consecutive Sundays.

The Jaguars play London twice, a week apart, at two different stadiums. Match-day transport and parking for the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium games are in our Tottenham Hotspur Stadium guide.

England play Czechia at Wembley on Tuesday 6 October, a midweek Nations League match two days after the first NFL game.

Fans walking up Olympic Way to Wembley Stadium on a Nations League match night.

Match-day transport, the bag rules and the hotels that treble in price on event nights are in our Wembley guide.

The last eight days: dark, full of children, and Halloween on a Saturday

The clocks go back — 2am, Sunday 25 October

British Summer Time ends at 2am on the last Sunday of October, by statute — the one date in this guide that genuinely cannot move. Clocks go back an hour, and the effect is not gradual: sunset is about 5.50pm on the Saturday before, and about 4.48pm on the Sunday after. By the 31st it is nearer 4.37pm. Anything you want to see outdoors in the last week of October — a park, a view, a river walk, a rooftop — has to happen before mid-afternoon.

Diwali on the Square — Trafalgar Square, the same Sunday

The Mayor of London’s Diwali celebration, free, with a mass opening dance sequence, a main stage of Hindu, Sikh and Jain music and dance, family workshops and vegetarian and vegan food stalls. It is not dated to Diwali itself — the festival moves with the lunar calendar and can fall outside October entirely, as it does in 2026 — but to a fixed October Sunday regardless. This year that Sunday is also the day the clocks go back, so the event runs 1pm to 7pm, tracking the earlier sunset rather than the clock: expect it to end a couple of hours after dark, which is when the square is worth being in.

MCM Comic Con London — ExCeL, 23 to 25 October

A three-day comics, gaming, anime and pop culture convention, ticketed, and timed against the start of half term. It closes on the same Sunday as Diwali and the clock change, and puts the biggest single-venue crowd of the month onto the DLR and the Elizabeth line at Custom House while it does — worth knowing if you are doing anything else in Docklands that weekend.

School half term — Monday 26 to Friday 30 October

Most London boroughs break up for the week beginning the last Monday of October — academies and free schools can set their own dates, so treat this as “most schools” rather than all of them. It is an attraction spike rather than a hotel spike: timed-entry slots at the paid attractions go first, so book before the week starts — the free museums are the fallback for anyone who didn’t, not the plan.

Family options land squarely in the week. Absurd City opens at Westfield London, Shepherd’s Bush, on 15 October — an immersive art experience across 80,000 sq ft, billed by its operator, Wake The Tiger, as Europe’s largest, with general admission family-friendly and separate 18+ “After Hours” evenings. Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More opens at Lightroom in King’s Cross the day before, on 14 October. At Shakespeare’s Globe, MakeBeth — an interactive retelling of Macbeth in recycled cardboard, for ages 7 and up — runs 24 October to 1 November, alongside family workshops through the same week and a Ghosts & Ghouls family tour that runs right through half term and Halloween.

Halloween — Saturday 31 October

Full guide: Halloween in London

31 October 2026 falls on a Saturday, the best possible night for it — scare attractions, club nights, ghost walks and one-off parties all run at full strength rather than being squeezed onto the nearest weekend. In most years the season around it peaks across half-term week rather than on the 31st itself; because this year’s 31st is a Saturday, the night itself is genuinely the peak too. Our Halloween guide has the scare attractions worth a train fare, the ones that don’t need one, and where you can still hire a proper costume this late.

Exhibitions closing this month

The first weekend: two free closers

John Constable: views of nature at the British Museum closes 4 October, free — a last chance rather than something to plan around, since there is nothing to book. The Royal Academy’s Charlie Billingham ends the same day; worth knowing it is filed as a free selling display rather than an exhibition, a different proposition from a ticketed show but still worth a look if you are at the RA anyway.

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 — National Portrait Gallery, closes 7 October

Free, on Floor 2. The award’s exhibition of the year’s shortlisted and winning portraits closes the first full week of the month, two days before the gallery’s next headline show opens.

Serpentine Pavilion and its neighbour both close 25 October

The Serpentine Pavilion 2026, this year’s commission by LANZA atelier — Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, titled simply “a serpentine” — closes in Kensington Gardens on 25 October, free. Steps away, Jesus Rafael Soto’s Penetrable BBL Jaune, a public sculpture from Soto’s Penetrable series, closes the same day, so the two make one walk rather than two separate trips — and it is the last month either is reliably pleasant to stand in.

Richard Dadd at the Royal Academy also closes 25 October.

A National Portrait for the National Portrait Gallery — closes 26 October

A free display in Room 33, on Floor 0, ending the day after half term begins.

Exhibitions opening this month

October has the year’s biggest opening cohort to match its closing one.

Korea — British Museum, from 1 October

Ticketed, filed under the museum’s special exhibitions, running to 31 January 2027.

Painting the French Riviera — Royal Academy, from 2 October

A major ticketed exhibition running to 31 January 2027, with a curator’s talk on 9 October and a related film season, Screening the French Riviera. It sits alongside a free selling display, In Provence and Southern France, already running at the RA since 29 September.

Renoir and Love — National Gallery, from 3 October

The direct continuation of September’s biggest closing story: Renoir’s La Grenouillère, reunited with Monet’s version of the same scene for September’s free pairing, moves into this exhibition the moment that display comes down. Runs to 31 January 2027.

The 90s: Art and Fashion — Tate Britain, from 8 October

Ticketed, free for Tate Members, running to 14 February 2027. Curated by Edward Enninful, drawing on photography by Juergen Teller, David Sims and Corinne Day, art by Steve McQueen, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Yinka Shonibare, and collections by Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and John Galliano. There is a Relaxed Hours slot on the third Wednesday of the month, 10 to 11am.

Justin Caguiat: Change Ringing — Serpentine South Gallery, from 8 October

Free, running to 10 January 2027, opening the same day as The 90s across town. Caguiat’s first UK institutional exhibition — painting, sculpture, printmaking, sound and film in a site-responsive installation — lands the same week the Pavilion season winds down outside.

Tim Walker’s Fairyland: Love and Legends — National Portrait Gallery, from 9 October

An exploration of queer identity, community and love through the work of one of Britain’s best-known photographers, running to 7 February 2027. It opens two days after the Portrait Award closes, so the gallery’s headline space changes hands inside the same week.

Light and Magic: The Birth of Art Photography — Tate Modern, from 14 October

The first major exhibition to explore pictorialism as a global movement — more than 200 rare prints by over 80 artists, from Seoul to Sydney, New York to Cape Town, alongside works from Tate’s own collection. Ticketed, free for Tate Members, running to 21 February 2027, and opening on the same Wednesday that Frieze Week’s invitation-only day begins.

Also worth knowing: Declaring Independence: USA 250 at the British Museum has been running free since the summer and continues right through October.

Theatre: what’s closing, and what’s opening

September’s guide covered openings only — the less urgent half. A closing date is what makes someone book this week rather than filing a show away for “sometime.” October is a heavy closing month, because the autumn press-night wave that filled September’s stages is now pushing the summer’s holdovers out.

What’s closing

The first weekend of the month clears out three shows at once: My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?) at the Apollo, The Children at the Lyric Hammersmith, and The Last Ship at Theatre Royal Drury Lane — a twelve-day run, so the first weekend of October is the whole window if you want it. Holy Fool, a play about Shostakovich under Stalin, and Flamenc-Oh!! at the Peacock both end 10 October.

The Globe’s open-air season closes in the same week half term begins: Much Ado About Nothing plays its last performance on 24 October, and As You Like It — co-directed by Sean Holmes and Charlie Josephine, with a Globe Talks panel on 11 October — closes the following day, 25 October. That is the last day of outdoor Shakespeare in London this year. The same week also closes Darkling at the Bush, Table 17 at the Kiln, and Tartuffe (Remixed) at the Marylebone Theatre, all on the 24th.

From The Heart at the Garrick opens and closes entirely inside the month, 8 to 18 October. On 31 October, four runs end together: Angel’s Bone at the Coliseum, The Hungry Ghost at the Bush, Stories – The Tap Dance Sensation at the Peacock, and Cirque Berserk! at the Garrick, which had only opened ten days earlier as a half-term booking.

What’s opening

The month’s biggest straight-play opening is The Cherry Orchard at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 3 October, running into January. High School Musical opens at Troubadour Wembley Park on 12 October, timed for the week before half term and running to 3 January. Jesus Christ Superstar takes the Drury Lane stage from 16 October, two weeks after The Last Ship vacates it, also running into January — as does The Lives of Others at the Adelphi from 14 October.

Kristin Scott Thomas leads Conor McPherson’s new version of Chekhov, directed by Ian Rickson, at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 3 October. Artwork: Sonia Friedman Productions.

At the London Coliseum, English National Opera stages Angel’s Bone from 16 October and Tosca from 30 October. Cirque Berserk! takes the Garrick for half term from 21 October, and Ceilidh opens at Shoreditch Town Hall on 22 October. The cheapest opening of the month is The Bridge at the Bush from 28 October, from £13.

One naming note still worth carrying: the Duke of York’s Theatre is now the Tom Stoppard Theatre, and you will see both names in circulation for a while yet.

New this month

Absurd City — Westfield London, from 15 October

Shepherd’s Bush, W12

Billed by its operator, Wake The Tiger, as Europe’s largest immersive art experience: 80,000 sq ft over two floors, five “districts,” and upwards of three hours of exploring, with an immersive bar and kitchen inside. General admission is family-friendly; “After Hours” evenings are 18+.

Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More — Lightroom, King’s Cross, from 14 October

A new Aardman show at Lightroom, the immersive space by King’s Cross, opening the day before Absurd City. Booking is open now.

Blue Note London’s first full month

The New York jazz club’s first UK venue, which opened on St Martin’s Lane in September, plays its first complete month in October — and the booking is serious. Baaba Maal plays a three-night residency, 4 to 6 October, in a 300-seat room for an artist who normally plays festivals and concert halls. Jamie Cullum returns for a second stand, 8 to 9 October, having also played the club’s opening run in September. Erykah Badu’s IMEHO, An Intimate Experience runs 10 to 11 October — the one to build a trip around, because Badu in a 300-seat room is not something that happens in London. Nubya Garcia plays three nights, 15 to 17 October, and Shabaka follows on 19 and 20 October.

Gigs worth planning around

Not a listings page — see the Blue Note run above for the room defining October’s jazz calendar. Beyond that, Alexandra Palace carries the month: Beth Orton on 22 October, Fat Freddy’s Drop on 23 October, the Crouch End Festival Chorus performing Mozart’s Requiem on 25 October — the cheapest way into the building, and a good pairing with Diwali on the Square earlier that same day — Overmono on 28 October, and Skindred closing out Halloween night, 31 October.

Angine de Poitrine play the Troxy on Monday 19 October, and it has sold out, which shows how far a joke can travel. The anonymous Quebec duo, Khn de Poitrine on guitar and bass and Klek de Poitrine on drums, perform in oversized papier-mâché masks and polka-dot suits and play microtonal math rock: music built from the notes that fall between the frets of an ordinary guitar. The band began as a gag for a local venue in Saguenay; a live set KEXP released in February passed millions of views and turned it into an international tour. Ticketmaster has none left, but will email if more are released. Over-14s, doors 7pm.

New restaurants and bars

The most perishable section on this page: where a restaurant has not named its opening day, treat the month as a guide rather than a booking.

Cloth Cornhill (38½ Cornhill, EC3V 9DR) opens 1 October, the second site from the Cloth restaurants group, taking over the building that was Simpson’s Tavern — the City’s oldest chophouse, trading on the site since 1757, closed since 2022 — with some dishes paying homage to it. The first-floor restaurant takes bookings up to 90 days ahead; the ground-floor pub is walk-in only.

Bamboo Mat opens a second, bigger site in Canary Wharf this month, its Nikkei menu — Japanese and Peruvian — following an original branch in Stratford. The Talli Queen takes over the former Queen Adelaide pub on Uxbridge Road in Shepherd’s Bush this October — the exact day has not been announced — under ex-Pahli Hill and Bandra Bhai chef Avi Shashidhara, built around what the kitchen calls “traditional drinking establishments of India.” And Dishoom Borough opens inside the Hop Exchange near London Bridge this October — one of the chain’s largest sites yet, with the exact day still to be announced.

Looking ahead to November and December

A few things worth knowing about now, even though none of them happen in October.

Bonfire Night is 5 November. Every display, which of them need tickets, the free viewpoints and which famous ones no longer run are in our Bonfire Night guide.

Hyde Park Winter Wonderland runs 19 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, and booking is already open: advance entry is £1 for off-peak slots and £8.25 at peak, with everything inside — rides, the ice rink, the circus — charged separately. Full prices, gates and what’s new for 2026 are in our Winter Wonderland guide.

Christmas in London starts earlier than most people expect: Trafalgar Square’s market opens on 6 November and its Norway spruce is lit on 3 December. Our Christmas in London guide tracks the other markets and light switch-ons as their dates are announced, and what has quietly stopped running.

November is the big month for international sport. England’s men play three Nations Championship matches at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham: Australia on Sunday 8 November, Japan on Saturday 14 November and New Zealand on Saturday 21 November, with tickets from £79, £51 and £103 respectively. England’s footballers play Croatia at Wembley on Thursday 12 November.

Practical: October in London

Weather. Around 16°C by day at the start of the month, falling to 12–13°C by the end, with nights down to 8–10°C — wetter than September, and the first month where a jacket alone is not enough. Assume rain and assume dark rather than packing for an average day.

Daylight. The defining fact of the month. Sunset moves from about 6.40pm on the 1st to about 5.50pm on the Saturday before the clocks change — then, overnight, to about 4.48pm the next day, because BST ends at 2am on the last Sunday of October. By the 31st it is about 4.37pm. Plan outdoor time for the first half of the day once you’re in the back half of the month.

Crowds. Two different months, split by half term. The first three weeks are among the easiest of the year in the big museums — summer has gone and the schools are in. Frieze weekend, 15 to 18 October, is the exception: the busiest the art world gets in London all year. Then half term refills every museum, aquarium and family attraction at once from the 26th.

Prices. Two spikes, for two different reasons. Frieze week is the hotel spike — five ticketed fairs and an international trade audience push rates up for five days. Half term is an attraction spike rather than a hotel one: timed-entry slots go first, and turning up on spec is how a day gets wasted. The value in October is the first ten days, and — if you don’t mind the dark — the very end of the month.

Common questions

What is the best time to visit London in October?

The first ten days, if you want a simple answer. Frieze Week — five ticketed art fairs plus the film festival's closing weekend, all overlapping between 15 and 18 October — is the most interesting stretch of the year if you like art, and the most expensive one for a hotel room. The last eight days are the opposite trade: the clocks go back, half term fills every attraction, and Halloween lands on a Saturday, so a lot is happening but daylight, calm and timed-entry slots are all in short supply. If you can choose, come before the 15th, or go in knowing the back half of the month is a darker, busier trip.

Can you still get tickets for the Bayeux Tapestry in October 2026?

Not for an October visit. Every ticket for 10 September to 31 December 2026, including the members' priority allocation, has sold out. What you can do this month instead: the free Bayeux Tapestry Opening Festival runs 9 to 11 October at the British Museum, though neither event includes entry to the Tapestry itself. For your own visit, members' priority booking for 1 January to 31 March 2027 reopens 6 October, and general booking for the same window opens 21 October.

What is Frieze Week, and is it worth going if you're not buying art?

Frieze Week is the run of days in the middle of October — Frieze London and Frieze Masters open 14 to 18 October in 2026 — when the two fairs in Regent's Park are joined by three satellite fairs: PAD on Berkeley Square, 1-54 at Somerset House and the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea Park. All are ticketed, and Frieze weekend tickets alone run from about £38. The free version is Frieze Sculpture: around a dozen large-scale works in the same park's English Gardens, no ticket needed, open from 16 September to 1 November, well before and after the fairs, at your own pace, for nothing.

When do the clocks go back in October 2026, and how much daylight do you lose?

2am on Sunday 25 October, when British Summer Time ends and the country returns to GMT. The change is overnight: sunset is about 5.50pm on the Saturday before and about 4.48pm on the Sunday after, so an hour of evening disappears between one day and the next. By the 31st, sunset is nearer 4.37pm. Anything you want to do outdoors in the last week of October needs to happen before mid-afternoon.

When is October half term in London 2026, and what does it change?

Monday 26 to Friday 30 October for most London boroughs, though academies and free schools can set their own dates. It is an attraction spike rather than a hotel spike: timed-entry slots at the paid attractions go first, so book before the week starts rather than turning up on spec. The free museums are the fallback for anyone who didn't book, not the plan.

Is Halloween in London 2026 on a good night to be out?

About as good as it gets — 31 October 2026 falls on a Saturday, so events run at full strength instead of being squeezed onto the nearest weekend. It also closes an already stacked week: the clocks have just gone back, half term is ending, and MCM Comic Con and Diwali on the Square both land on the Sunday before it. Our [Halloween in London guide](/articles/halloween-london/) has the scare attractions, club nights and where to still hire a costume.

What festivals are on in London in October 2026?

More than any other month. The BFI London Film Festival runs 7 to 18 October, Dance Umbrella 7 to 27 October, Bloomsbury Festival and Black History Month all month, the London Literature Festival from 20 October into November, and Diwali on the Square in Trafalgar Square on Sunday 25 October. Layer the five Frieze Week art fairs on top of that and the middle fortnight of October is the densest the London calendar gets.

Are there NFL games in London in October 2026?

Three, on consecutive Sundays: Indianapolis Colts v Washington Commanders on 4 October and Philadelphia Eagles v Jacksonville Jaguars on 11 October, both at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, then Houston Texans v Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley on 18 October.