Bankside Open Spaces Festival - 8 June 2024

On the 8 June, Bankside Open Spaces Festival beat off grey clouds to become another magical community highlight. Around 15,000 people joined us for an afternoon of live music, dancing, family activities, DJs, sport, food and fun.

Bankside Open spaces Festival - bringing the sunshine to Bankside!

Bankside Open Spaces Festival bucked the poor weather trend this year by bringing a taste of South and Central America to the streets of Bankside. From our Latina Fiesta opening at 12pm, the sun shone all afternoon on the area’s biggest free party!

The festival’s diverse and eclectic program included eight bands on the Main Stage offering blues, jazz, funk, soul, rock, and country. Meanwhile, over at Red Cross Garden, atmospheric folk, Americana-inspired music, and nature-inspired poetry filled our beautiful space.

For those seeking activity, we hosted a range of workshops in both sport and dance at Marlborough Sports Garden, interspersed with choral performances from local choirs. We were delighted to welcome Heat ‘n’ Soul Choir for the first time—this choir is formed to champion the power and talents of people with learning disabilities and autistic people. Another highlight was the Rock Choir’s incredible BSL interpreter, proving that accessibility always wins! Festival-goers loved getting up and showing off their moves with Jig and a Swig Irish Dancing, Niimei Cultural Group Ghanaian Drums and Dance, Upside Down Street Dance, and Salsateca too. Around this musical activity, we showcased walking football, and families enjoyed football and wall ball coaching, a fitness challenge, and lots of ping pong. A real celebration of keeping active to boost health and well-being.

BOSFest - making space for everyone

BOSFest grows and develops year on year – this year we were delighted to add a neurodiversity zone. We worked with Neurodiversity Family Hub to create a quieter space near Little Dorrit Court where people could escape to if they felt overwhelmed. We also offered a range of nature focused activities, including sun printing and a barefoot safari.

We changed the area close to Crossbones Graveyard following feedback from the local community. Rather than hosting a dance stage and stalls on Redcross Way, we added circus skills and facepainting for a fun family area. Families appreciated the extra facepainting and loved trying their hand at juggling, tightrope walking and hula hooping!

As ever, Union Street was a hive of activity with stalls running the length of the street, a dance stage hosted by Pempeople drew crowds in from Borough High Street and engaged dancers with live street art and more! We also welcomed UDM Samba back to the festival – with added audience participation.

BOSFest2024 represented the very best of our community, and our much-loved open spaces - thank you to all who came! See you next year.

Sponsors and supporters

Thank you to our funders Southwark Council and United St Saviour’s and our sponsors Landsec, Fabrix, Snowsfield Partnership -Snowsfield Quarter, Berkeley Homes and Hines.

Developers at Bankside Open Spaces Festival

At Bankside Open Spaces Festival, we invite developers with projects in the area to display these schemes and engage with the locals who attend the festival.

This is often the only opportunity that the community has to see these developments together in one place. This is beneficial for the community and helps the developers with their Community Consultation. In return the Developers contribute to the cost of organising the Festival. Enabling this platform does not constitute/signify Bankside Open Spaces Trust’s support for individual schemes.

Festival partners

Booths of London and their sister company Showtime Photo Booth partnered with us for the Festival this year, thank you for providing us with a free banner!