Notting Hill Carnival began 54 years ago and is a staple of the London social calendar.
Held during the August Bank Holiday weekend, the 3-day annual event celebrates Caribbean heritage, arts and culture – including music, food, costume parades and dancing.
Sadly this year carnival is cancelled due to COVID-19, but there will be a series of free, online live-streamed events for lovers of the festival to enjoy showing across four channels on the official Notting Hill Carnival website.
Running from noon until 11pm on August 30th – 31st, with warm up events held from 9am – noon and 6pm until midnight on August 29th, click here for full details.
For those feeling sad about missing out on this years event, here are 15 things you may not know about London’s loudest, brightest and biggest summer party!
1. The first Notting Hill Carnival took place back in 1966, and was organised by Rhaune Laslett and Andre Shervington – two Notting Hill residents who wanted to highlight and celebrate the long standing cultural diversity in the area.
2. The yearly event is the biggest street festival in Europe, and the second biggest carnival in the world behind Rio de Janeiro.
3. The super colourful and celebratory street parade route is a mega 3.5 miles long.
4. There are up to 2 million attendees at Carnival each year, plus 40,000 volunteers and 9,000 police.
5. 40 static sound systems line the streets of Notting Hill playing an eclectic mix of music including salsa, rock, reggae, dancehall, techno and house.
6. 10 steel bands play live throughout the course of the 3 days.
7. There are 70 performing stages.
8. Approximately 300 food stalls are setup around the district of West London, with a variety of cuisine available.
9. It is estimated that 5 tons of chicken and 5 million hot and cold drinks are served throughout Carnival – including 70,000 litres of carrot juice and 25,000 bottles of rum.
10. There are 5 different aspects of carnival: masquerade, sound systems, steel pan bands, calypso and soca.
11. The infamous costume troops seen performing and dancing during the carnival parade are known as ‘Mas Bands’
12. Mas Band’s elaborate, bright and often flamboyant costumes are constructed based on West African mythsl and were originally intended to be more scary than sexy!
13. There are approximately 15,00 costumes made every year for Notting Hill Carnival, that are estimated to take 1 million man-hours to craft and decorate by hand!
14. It is festival tradition on a Sunday for Carnival attendees to slap one another with melted chocolate!
15. Notting Hill Carnival contribute around £93 million to London’s economy. (Policing the event costs £6 million.)
