CITY SPLASH WEEk

Every year, in the lead-up to City Splash, we host a week-long series of events and activations that bring the festival to life through a range of community partnerships and collaborations.

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ourppls x City Splash Fund

ourppls is collaborating with City Splash to also offer 4 x £500 grants for emerging event curators/producers to receive funding to produce an event or workshop during City Splash Week.

The grant is open to organisers of all ages; however, we'll be prioritising funding to go towards those who are having their first event. APPLY HERE

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TUESDAY

SOCA AEROBICS | WAISTLINE WORKOUTS

On Tuesdays come and ROCK IT at the YAA centre in the heart of the Carnival Village! Coach Rho puts you through your cardio, conditioning and waistline paces with our infamous Soca Aerobics session... Waistline Workouts!

An opportunity to visit the exciting new exhibition 'The Music is Black: A British Story' and travel through time as over 120 tracks from every era play directly through your headset. More than an exhibition, this immersive sound experience explores the power and impact of Black British music.

V&A East Exhibition

wednesday

This event series by Tallawah Agency and Carnival Village UK spotlights Notting Hill Carnival as a cornerstone of Black-Caribbean British culture. Together, we'll trace Carnival's powerful origins, unpack its enduring legacy, and explore why its place on the streets remains essential to this day.

Garden of Afruika's free cooking club returns to South London Gallery, simultaneously centring culture and cooking. Learn how to make Waakye, share a meal with others, and reconnect with the creative practice of cooking.

Poetic Temple has joined forces with The Africa Centre to fundraise while designing Africa Town. An electrifying spoken word, music and live art experience, hosted by Nat Nye The Lyrical Alkhemist and Stella B — featuring London’s finest artists wielding their gifts for transformation. This City Splash edition features a talk from Black History Walks’ Tony Warner.

Join Finding Harmony's Singing for Wellbeing sessions for adults of African, African Caribbean, and African diaspora descent. Across three evenings, explore your voice, learn songs, and share in the joy of music in a relaxed, feel-good space. Alongside the music, we’ll include light-touch health information and conversations, hosted at Brixton House.

THURSDAY

The Umoja Projects continue to explore Black identity in Britain. This time with a musically led intergeneratioinal panel. Black Brit 'ish' is a chance for the community to collectively discuss the connection between identity and music but also the future of Black music in Britain.

Get ready to vibe and sing your heart out at our Reggae Thursday Karaoke Night! Join us in person for an evening full of chill beats, good vibes, and epic karaoke performances. 

The Break is iluvlive’s educational panel series that facilitates honest and practical conversations for emerging artists and aspiring music industry professionals. In session, we'll explore how diaspora culture travels, evolves, and influences music from local scenes to international stages. Hosted at Pop Brixton, entry is free for locals from Brixton, emerging artists, and aspiring industry professionals, thanks to iluvlive's support as a non-profit organisation.

Join New Beacon Books for an esteemed panel of active members of The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) exploring the pioneering foundations of a Caribbean and Black Artistic & Cultural Aesthetic in Britain.

FRIDAY

In the lead up to the City Splash festival, Each One Teach One and Home Radio join forces to bring you a grounded evening of free food, games and conversation with special guests from the City Splash lineup. Everybody welcome. Tell your family

Join Decolonising the Archive as they host Jamaican reggae artist Mystic Warrior for a live performance essay that centres on the relationship between music, community, and the archive. This online series provides a platform for artists as thinkers to engage their work not only as creative expression, but as critical intervention.

Join us at the Wolves Lane Centre in Haringey for a unique, music-infused growing experience. Take part in a plant tour featuring culturally significant crops like sorghum, okra, callaloo and bamboo—then get hands-on, sowing seeds to the sounds of soca. This is more than a workshop; it’s a chance to connect culture, land and community. You’ll also help shape the future by contributing to the co-design of a new community seed bank—supporting seed preservation, cataloguing, and global knowledge-sharing. Set within a 3.5-acre urban growing space co-stewarded by The Ubele Initiative and Organiclea, this session brings the spirit of City Splash into the soil.

Rooted in the spirit of carnival, diaspora and musical innovation, the event brings together artists from across generations and traditions to celebrate the power of sound as a bridge between heritage and future. At the heart of the experience is a unique musical dialogue between the Ney — one of the world’s oldest instruments — and the steel pan, one of the newest and most iconic instruments of Caribbean culture and carnival legacy. Hip hop acts as the connective thread, bringing these sounds into conversation through live performance, improvisation and storytelling.

SUPERORGANIC presents Ancient Sounds x Future Focus

A live cultural activation series transforming everyday local spaces into immersive music and community experiences. Inspired by BLOKX’s wider mission of “taking culture back to the streets,” the activation aims to reconnect audiences with the joy of spontaneous community experiences while spotlighting independent local businesses and emerging talent.

BLOKX Shop Session

The event will also showcase how grassroots community spaces can support mental wellbeing, environmental awareness and creative development through accessible programming rooted in culture and inclusion. Refreshments, music and opportunities for ongoing community involvement through JuscoolRadio, Eyes of Many and future JCR Community Hub activities will also be available.

Roots & Rhythm: Neurodivergent Growth Workshop

SATURDAY

City Splash is arriving at the Shoreditch House Back Deck and will be setting the tone for the bank holiday weekend with an incredible party! Join us for a night of Reggae, Dancehall and Afrobeats

The event will bring together emerging creatives and local communities for an afternoon or evening of painting, music and shared culture. Guests will be guided through a relaxed sip and paint session soundtracked by reggae and dancehall selections, creating an atmosphere that feels warm, open and culturally grounded.

The intention is to remove the barriers that often exist around creative spaces and social events, especially cost and intimidation. This will be a subsidised and accessible experience, with a portion of tickets made free or low cost to ensure that people who would not normally attend similar events are still able to take part.

Brush and Bass

We’re incredibly proud to be partnering with legendary streetwear designers Patta on an exclusive City Splash x Patta jersey - which will be available the Patta London store on Saturday 23rd May. To celebrate this we’ll be doing a a 5K Run Club with the Patta London Running Crew - kicking off at the Patta London Store at 10:30am that day. The route will run around Hyde Park - finishing off at the store in time for the City Splash x Patta Jersey drop. Bag drop facilities will be available.

SOLE INTENT is a one-day immersive HYPHNT experience where creativity, community and culture come together for a greater purpose. Guests are invited to customise their own pair of HYPHNT footwear while enjoying music, food and curated entertainment — all in support of hurricane relief efforts in Jamaica. This is more than an event — it’s a moment to create, connect and give back.

SUNDAY

Join Jords over in West London for a White City House Takeover in the lead up to City Splash Festival!

Pana's Dub Garden Yoga brings the sounds of dub and roots reggae music to Ruskin Park for a vinyasa yoga class. The handpicked tracks and seamless flow of postures link breath to movement, encouraging strength in the body and a calm mind. Join Dr Rebekah Jade for a 60-minute all-abilities practice, perfect for anyone looking to move outside and explore culturally rooted wellbeing.

Imagine Carnival. Now imagine it in a club, with Soca and Dancehall instructors, a live DJ, and 300 people who came to sweat. That is Zaiah Art's PACE, an immersive high energy dance fitness event where Caribbean music lovers are put through the paces as they, sweat, whine and wave to the sounds of Notting Hill carnival.

From a domino tournament against Brixton Soup Kitchen to kid friendly activities, Brixton Immortals have got it all at their annual BBQ.

Amid the movement of City Splash, be_____still's reading room offers a moment to pause and ground in the sociopolitical weight of Caribbean voices. Step into a shared space at Seed Archives and engage with a curated collection of Caribbean texts—spanning literature, politics, and history from across the islands

Holding space for the multiplicity of Caribbean voices across islands and diasporas. Join us in slow collective reading, reflection, and exchange.

Ital Community gardens invites you to relationship with land and find a new vitality through growing culturally diverse foods & healing herbs, in making new connections or finding an inner peace. You'll gain hands on experience in food sovereignty, climate and racial justice in our dynamic community garden, where we will share a community meal at the end of a satisfying day.

Re: Imagine land

What does home mean to you? Is it; a person? a memory? a feeling? a place?

The Sip 'N' Create: 'Home is...' event is an intimate collage workshop exploring identity, belonging, comfort, and becoming, centred on the theme 'home is...,' as a form of creativity and self-expression.

Expect an afternoon of collage-making, music and honest conversation, whilst sipping on tea blends and home-made beverages inspired by Caribbean and African culture.

Come along solo or with friends, and don't worry, no artistic experience is required!

Sip 'N' Create: Home is...

*Disclaimer - City Splash is not responsible for the planning or production of the events taking place from Wednesday 20th to Sunday 24th. All events are being completely managed by independent partners and will need to be contacted directly for all enquiries.