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Hey Neighbour,
There’s so many things to do in North London this weekend. Here’s the full list.
— Maryam
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Your guide to what’s happening in North London this week. Events marked with (£) require a ticket in advance.
The Hope Festival | 📍Pirates Grog Rum, N17 | 18 October | (£)
Creative Stand Up 2 Breast Cancer throws its biggest event yet in Tottenham: an afternoon of independent designers, a catwalk showcase, poetry, rum tasting and food, then a party from 8pm with DJs, live performances and body painting until 2am. All of it raising money for breast cancer charities. £6 for the day, £6 for the night, £10 for both. Come in pink.
Apple Day | 📍Islington Ecology Centre, N5 | 18 October | Free
Come and juice apples in Gillespie Park, a two-minute walk from Arsenal station. The Friends of Gillespie Park put this on every October: live music, craft stalls, face painting, children's activities and a Dr Bike session too. Bring cash for the stalls. 12pm to 4pm.
Stories Boys Don’t Like To Tell | 📍Dugdale Arts Centre, EN2 | Until 17 October | (£)
Group of friends, familiar banter, video games. Then one of them says something nobody saw coming, and one by one they start telling the stories they’ve never shared: addiction, mental health, shame, the pressure to always be okay. Written by Enfield playwrights Ellis Witter and Dumisani Moyo, blending humour and music with real honesty. Until 17 October.
Make & Mend Festival | 📍Hornsey Town Hall, Crouch End, N8 | 17 October | Free entry
Muswell Hill Creatives is taking over Hornsey Town Hall for a whole day of making things, learning old and new skills and meeting some of the people who make locally. You can sit down and have a go at Japanese Sashiko embroidery, linocut printing, modern calligraphy or making a paper lampshade, then wander through a market of ceramics, jewellery, textiles and other work made by local artists and makers. Stroud Green WI will be bringing the homemade cakes and savouries, Sean’s Shack is doing the drinks and sandwiches, and there’s a tombola raising money for Wave Hub. It’s the eighth Make & Mend Festival, but the first one inside Hornsey Town Hall. 11am to 5pm. Entry is free, with workshops booked separately and individually priced.
The Imperial Night Sky | 📍The Imperial, WC1B | 14, 18 & 21 October | (£)
UCL astronomers set up telescopes on the rooftop of the Imperial Hotel on Russell Square for an evening of stargazing over London. They're aiming for Saturn, the moon and the Pleiades. If the sky clouds over, it moves indoors with talks and presentations. Drink included. £20, 7pm to 9pm.
Nuns With Tattoos | 📍Conway Hall, WC1R | 17 October | (£)
What happens when different parts of who you are seem as though they are not supposed to fit together? British Jamaican artist Esther Foga brings her experiences of being queer, Christian and a woman into a cabaret mixing personal stories, real accounts from other people and music. She moves between her own original songs and everything from FKA twigs’ Cellophane to musical theatre, using them to explore faith, identity, taboos and the question at the centre of the show: “Who are you when no one’s in the room?” 7pm to 9.30pm.
AllDay Indie Indoor Festival | 📍BOXPARK Wembley, HA9 | 17 October | (£)
A day party built around indie anthems at BOXPARK Wembley, with festival-style DJs, confetti, immersive production and street food. Think the glory days of indie dancefloors, indoors. 5pm to 11pm.
Source: Finsbury Park Focus
Ghost Portrait Painting | 📍Blighty Café, N4 | 18 October | (£)
Spend a Sunday afternoon painting a ghost portrait in a little frame to take home, at Blighty in Finsbury Park. All paints and materials provided, step-by-step guidance, a drink included, and absolutely no artistic ability required. The important question: cute ghost or creepy ghost? 2pm to 4pm.
Go Ape Sundown Adventures | 📍Alexandra Palace, N22 | Weekends from 16 October | (£)
Go Ape at Ally Pally does this once a year: high ropes through the trees as the sun goes down over London, the course lit up with glowing lights as it gets dark. Back for autumn, with adults-only sessions for the first time. £32, ages 6 and over, from 6pm. Sessions are limited so book ahead.
Legends and Legacy of the Whittington Stone | 📍Abney Park, N16 | 18 October | (£)
Dick Whittington sat on a stone on Highgate Hill, heard the bells of London calling him back, and turned around. That stone still stands. This talk at Abney Park traces the legend back to its medieval roots, asking what it really meant and how folklore shaped the city around it. Folklorist Alessandra Curtis digs into the early texts, in a Victorian cemetery full of its own stories. £16, 3.30pm.
London Craft Chocolate Fair | 📍Fidelio Café, EC1R | 17 - 18 October | (£)
Taste your way through some of the world’s best bean-to-bar chocolate at Fidelio Café in Clerkenwell, at the start of Chocolate Week. Makers from across the UK and beyond including Pump Street, Chocolarder and Friis Holm, plus talks and tastings with experts including James Hoffmann. Come curious, leave converted. £5 entry, tastings from £25. Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm.
Camden Oktoberfest | 📍Electric Ballroom, NW1 | Every Saturday in October | (£)
Oktoberfest is Germany’s famous autumn beer festival, and Camden has been throwing its own version at the Electric Ballroom for ten years. Bavarian beer, bratwursts, a brass Oomph band, dancers and interactive games every Saturday through October. From £12.45, over 18s, 2pm.
🧺 Markets Worth A Stroll
North London Record Fair | 📍The Elmhurst, N17 | 18 October | Free
Dig through records at The Elmhurst in Tottenham, pound bins to high-end rarities across all genres, with DJs playing through the day. Have a dig then stay for a Sunday roast. Family and dog friendly. Free, 10am to 4pm.
North London Curated Pop-Up Market | 📍St Mary’s, Upper Street, N1 | 17 October | Free
North London Curated was started by two traders who were fed up with badly run markets, so they built the kind they’d actually want to sell at. Emma Harrison and Anna of Dirty Bertie Vintage still trade at every event themselves, alongside the 24 independent sellers they’ve brought together here. Vintage fashion, homeware, art, jewellery and kidswear in the grounds of St Mary’s Church on Upper Street, with a DJ on the decks all day
Tender Riot: Black & Blooming | 📍The Common Press, N16 | 18 October | Free
Tender Riot brings together Black LGBTQIA+ makers, artists and designers for a market celebrating Black queer creativity during Black History Month. Fashion, zines, books, art and stationery, with talks, readings, DJs and family activities running alongside as part of the wider Black Queer Community Day. Market 12pm to 5pm, community day until 6pm.
Clissold Car Boot | 📍Stoke Newington School, N16 | 18 October | (£) Peckham Car Boot’s new North London trial continues at Stoke Newington School: car boot sellers, vintage finds and good people in a school yard. £5 gets you in from 10am for first pick, £1 after 11am. Until 2pm.
Courtyard Market N6 | 📍St Augustine’s Church Hall, N6 | 18 October | Free
Makers market in a Highgate church hall with the kind of stalls you stop at twice: herbal teas, handmade ceramics, reversible children’s clothing, home fragrances, jewellery, fine art prints and crochet plushies. Ten minutes from Highgate and Archway stations. Free, 11am to 4pm.
Love Your N21 Sunday Market | 📍The Sidings, N21 | 18 October | Free
Sunday market next to Winchmore Hill station with street food, homeware, art, jewellery and accessories. Go hungry, bring a bag. 10am to 3pm.
Shōtengai Market | 📍Lower Stable Street, N1C | 15 - 18 October | Free
Japanese-style street market back on Lower Stable Street in King’s Cross with pan-Asian homeware, fashion and food. Vendors rotate each month so there’s always something new, but expect the likes of Japanese homewares, Tokyo bikes, okonomiyaki pancakes and takoyaki. Food stalls Thursday to Sunday, craft and homeware Friday to Sunday.
Hackney Flea Market | 📍Abney Public Hall, N16 | 17 - 18 October | Free Hackney Flea returns to Abney Public Hall on Stoke Newington Church Street, with forty handpicked vintage traders selling 20th century furniture, records, salvaged French homeware, lamps, textiles, curiosities and the kind of one-off finds you go home pleased with. The street itself is half the draw, all independent shops, cafes and pubs, so you can browse and then stop off for a coffee. Dog friendly, free entry, 10am to 5pm both days.
Fair Play Art Fair | 📍One Marylebone, NW1 | 15 - 18 October | (£)
Seventy independent artists show and sell at One Marylebone during Frieze Week, every one chosen for the quality of their work rather than their ability to pay for exhibition space. Meet them, buy directly, and stay for the live performances, music and food running through the venue into the evening.
High School Musical | 📍Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre, HA9 | Until 3 January | (£)
Twenty years since the film, High School Musical is on stage at Wembley Park with Harry Judd from McFly as Coach Bolton and original cast member KayCee Stroh as Ms Darbus. The staging puts some of the audience on stage, so you’re inside East High rather than watching from a distance. Breaking Free, Get’cha Head in the Game, We’re All in This Together. Ages 6 and over, until 3 January.
Frieze London & Frieze Masters | 📍Regent's Park, NW1 | 14 - 18 October | (£)
The world's biggest art fair, in a tent in Regent's Park. Three hundred galleries from 48 countries, contemporary work alongside Old Masters. If you follow art, this is the week everything happens in London.
Source: Kings Cross Shōtengai pan-Asian Market
Vegan Life Live | 📍Alexandra Palace, N22 | 16 - 18 October | (£)
Three-day vegan festival at Ally Pally with 200-plus exhibitors selling plant-based food, clothing, cosmetics and more. Food court serves vegan cuisine from around the world, and free talks cover nutrition, fitness, animal welfare and activism. Your ticket also gets you into the OM Yoga Show and Mind Body Soul Experience running alongside. Free shuttle from Wood Green tube and Alexandra Palace station. Under 16s free with an adult. Friday 11am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 10am to 5pm. One day £10, two days £16, three days £23.
Women of Willesden Guided Walk | 📍Willesden Jewish Cemetery, NW10 | 18 October | (£)
Guided walk through Willesden Jewish Cemetery celebrating the women buried there who changed history through philanthropy, science and business, women whose stories sit quietly in the ground while the world largely moved on without knowing them. Seventy-five minutes, maximum 25 people. £10, concessions £8. 10am.
Autumn Pumpkin Paint Pour Workshop | 📍Forty Hall, EN2 | 17 October | (£)
Pour paint over a ceramic pumpkin, watch it swirl and marble into something completely your own, and take it home just in time for Halloween. Wonderfully messy, no experience needed, aprons provided. At Forty Hall in Enfield. £40, ages 16 and over. 1pm to 3pm.
Lee Valley Comic Con | 📍Lee Valley Athletics Centre, N9 | 18 October | (£)
Comic con at Lee Valley with 170-plus tables of toys, Pokemon, Funko figures and comics, a cosplay competition, gaming area, artist alley and a charity auction. Special guest this year is Colin Baker, the sixth Doctor Who. Under 12s free, free parking. £15 early bird from 9am, £10 general from 10am, £5 after 2pm.
⏳Still On
Catch them while you can.
Queer Britain Museum | 📍Granary Square, N1C | Until 23 December | Pay what you can
Queer Britain is the UK’s national LGBTQ+ museum, tucked just behind King’s Cross in Granary Square. Its galleries bring together objects, photographs, print and personal stories from LGBTQ+ life and history, with displays changing throughout the year. If you visit this autumn, you’ll find From Exclusion to Inclusion, telling the stories of LGBTQ+ veterans who were dismissed from the armed forces when they were banned from serving, alongside Trans is Human until 29 November. From 21 October there’s also a film and installation built around A Gay Song, an LGBTQ+ protest song first recorded on vinyl in 1972 and re-recorded by the original band more than 50 years later. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm to 6pm. Pay what you can, with £10 suggested or £5 if you’re under 30.
Bloomsbury Festival | 📍Various venues, WC1 | 1 - 31 October | Free/(£)
A month of events across Bloomsbury's museums, galleries and labs for the festival's 20th year. This year's programme includes a medical comedy night, filmmaking workshops, Diwali celebrations and museum treasure hunts. Over 150 events in total, most free or low cost.
Month of the Dead | 📍Various venues| 1 October - 1 November | (£)
Festival of talks, cemetery tours and silent horror film screenings about death, dying and what comes after. Many events come with a free gin punch on arrival. Over 60 events across London through October, some of the sell out fast.
Korea: 2,000 Years of Creativity | 📍British Museum, WC1B | 1 October - 31 January 2027 | (£)
Two thousand years of Korean art at the British Museum: ancient gold jewellery, Buddhist sculpture, 12th-century celadon pottery and ink landscapes through to work made in living memory. Most of it has never been shown in the UK before. Daily 10am to 5pm, Fridays until 8.30pm.
Nazi Slave Labour: Perpetrators and Victims | 📍Wiener Holocaust Library, WC1 | Until 30 October | Free
Between 1939 and 1945, twenty million people were forced to work for the Nazi regime. This exhibition at the Wiener Holocaust Library shows how it worked: the SS, I.G. Farben, Krupp and other companies that profited, the company files and eyewitness testimony that documented it, and portraits of survivors photographed by Mike Stone
The Operating Theatre: 250 Years of Surgery in Hospitals | 📍Hunterian Museum, WC2A | Until 31 October | Free
Exhibition tracing how hospital operating theatres have changed since the 18th century, starting with a recently rediscovered painting of a leg amputation before anaesthesia existed, and ending with photographs of NHS surgical teams today. Free with museum entry, Wednesday to Saturday.
Seeing the Potential | 📍Swiss Cottage Gallery, NW3 | Until 10 December | Free
Matthew Small makes portraits of people on salvaged metal and discarded surfaces, materials rescued from the skip given a new life carrying someone's face. Part of Camden's Black History Season. Free, walk-ins welcome, Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm.
If you’re interested in getting your product, service or event in front of 5k+ North Londoners → Partner with us