Carnival Turned 60 — and City Hall Put £5.6m Behind It

The bank holiday belonged to W10. Notting Hill Carnival ran Saturday 29 to Monday 31 August, and this year it turned 60 — a diamond jubilee for something that started in 1966 as a children's street party. Rhaune Laslett, a local resident and social worker, organised it to pull a neighbourhood through racial tension and bad housing. Russell Henderson's steel band played that first procession through Portobello Road.

Sixty years on, the arithmetic is different. The Mayor of London has put a further £4.66 million behind this year's event, on top of £946,300 already committed — £5.606 million from City Hall in total, earmarked for safety and crowd management, including additional barriers and stewarding. City Hall puts Carnival's contribution to London's economy at nearly £400 million a year. Time Out reports as many as two million people attend, around 40,000 volunteers help stage it, and 9,000 police officers are drafted in.

From a children's street party on Portobello Road to a weekend worth £400m to the city.

The shape of the three days: Saturday was Panorama at Emslie Horniman's Pleasance Park — Junior Panorama at 5pm, the full steel band competition at 8pm. Sunday opened at 6am with J'ouvert at Canal Way Roundabout, then the opening ceremony from 10am to 10.30am on Great Western Road, then the Children's Day Parade. The Main Parade stepped off at 10.30am on Monday. Sound systems and stages ran 12pm to 7pm on both the Sunday and the Monday. Time Out puts the parade route at around three and a half miles, from Westbourne Park station to Elkstone Road.

Sadiq Khan called it 'one of our capital's biggest events, drawing Londoners and visitors from across the globe to West London every year in a fantastic celebration of Caribbean culture'. Ian Comfort, chair of Notting Hill Carnival Ltd, said the Mayor's support 'ensures that we can deliver a safe, spectacular and sustainable Carnival in this 60th anniversary year'. Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster Council back it too. Organisers call it Europe's largest cultural event and the world's second largest carnival. For three days at the end of August, nothing else was in the diary.