What's On in London This Weekend: the Lord Mayor's Show and the Jazz Festival, 14 to 15 November 2026

The second weekend of November belongs to the EFG London Jazz Festival, which opens on Friday 13 November, and to the City, which holds the Lord Mayor's Show on the Saturday. This is a short, dated list for Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 November and the week around it, written on Wednesday 4 November from the organisers' own listings, linked at the foot of the page. Where a detail comes from one source only, that source is named. Times and availability move, so check the organiser before you travel. The weekend before is in What's on in London, 7–8 November.

Saturday 14 November: the Lord Mayor's Show

• The procession sets off from Mansion House at 11am, per the Show's own site and IanVisits. IanVisits gives the route as through the City to the Royal Courts of Justice and back, 2.86 miles, with about 6,500 participants, 250 horses and more than 50 floats. It is free to watch.
• It starts on the river this year: IanVisits reports that the Lord Mayor leaves Westminster at 8.30am aboard the Royal Shallop Jubilant, with a flotilla of livery boats, and passes under Tower Bridge before landing at HMS President.
• The Show's site says roads in the City are closed for most of the day and usually reopen before 4pm, and that the City of London Guides lead a free walk from No1 Poultry at 3pm.

Saturday 14 November: the jazz festival

• Goldie's 'Dare to Dream', an orchestral project made for the festival with his live band, a choir and guests, plays the Royal Festival Hall twice, at 5pm and 8.30pm, per the festival's listing, which gives tickets at £42.75 to £84.75 including fees.
• Asha Puthli: The Cosmic Voyager, in the Barbican Hall at 7.30pm, per the Barbican and the festival. The Barbican gives tickets from £30 plus a booking fee.
• Also on the festival's Saturday listing: Caravan Palace at the British Airways ARC, Courtney Pine at PizzaExpress Live in Soho, and L'Antidote with Naïssam Jalal and Roberto Negro at Cadogan Hall.
• Free, for families: Tarana in the Southbank Centre's Clore Ballroom, which the festival tags as family and free.

Sunday 15 November: the jazz festival

• Anouar Brahem's After the Last Sky in the Barbican Hall, and Yasuaki Shimizu at Milton Court, both at 7.30pm, per the Barbican and the festival.
• On the festival's Sunday listing: Lizz Wright at Cadogan Hall, Ambrose Akinmusire's Starshine & Clay at Kings Place, Alfredo Rodríguez and Pedrito Martínez at KOKO, and Dave Okumu & Friends at Union Chapel, with music from Nina Simone to Sly Stone.
• Free, for families: Sound Lines: Voice and Percussion in the Clore Ballroom, again tagged family and free.
• Robert Glasper is at Blue Note London across the festival, 13 to 22 November, per the festival's listing. The festival line-up

The week around it

• Monday 9 November: Oxford Street switches on its Harry Potter-themed lights, per Time Out and Oxford Street's own site. Every switch-on
• Wednesday 11 November: Skate at Somerset House opens in the courtyard and runs to 10 January 2027. Somerset House gives adult tickets from £13 to £28.50, plus a £1.50 fee per ticket.
• Thursday 12 November: Covent Garden and Bond Street switch on their lights, per Time Out and each street's own site.
• Friday 13 November: Christmas at Kew, the light trail, opens and runs to 3 January 2027, 4.20pm to 10pm, per Gardens Illustrated; Time Out gives the same opening date. Book ahead.
• Friday 13 November in cinemas: Ebenezer, How to Rob a Bank and The Mosquito Bowl are among the releases on Screen Daily's calendar. The week's releases

Open throughout

Tarek Atoui's Hyundai Commission fills Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, free, to 11 April 2027, per Tate. The commission

Just after

Hyde Park Winter Wonderland opens on Thursday 19 November and runs to 3 January 2027, every day except Christmas Day; its own site says off-peak entry from Monday to Thursday in November costs £1. Dates and tickets. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping reaches cinemas on Friday 20 November, on Screen Daily's calendar, and Van Eyck: The Portraits opens at the National Gallery on Saturday 21 November, to 11 April 2027, at £18, the Gallery says. The rest of the season is in London culture, November and December 2026, and the rest of the month's films in UK cinema releases, 20 and 27 November.

A festival weekend is a reminder of how much a room shapes a sound. If it sends you home wanting to record your own, our recording studio is a treated room built for it, and our guide to shooting a music video in a studio covers the picture that goes with it. You can check dates on the booking page.