Soho House Festival took place this Thursday, inviting members from Houses across the country to gorge themselves on unlimited food and booze for a whole day in Gunnersbury Park.
The ticket, which cost £310 for full fee members and £255 for under 27s, gave guests access to a bottomless lobster bar and endless supply of Champagne. On top of this, Soho House Festival guests were treated to performances from Craig David, Texas and Groove Armada.
MCs between acts made mild self-knowing jokes about the event being the “most middle-class festival ever”, but it wasn’t until headline act The Streets took to the stage that the mocking really got going.
Anyone who knows anything about Mike Skinner should have seen it coming. The songwriter and vocalist, known for hit tracks like Fit But You Know It and Turn The Page, immediately compared the festival to The Hunger Games, reminding guests frequently, “Only one of you will survive”.
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He repeatedly requested to be brought “1,000 Picantes” (a Soho House signature cocktail) and threatened to start a “wall of death”, where a mosh pit separates into two sides and then crashes into each other, between rival Houses.
“We’re going to do a massive wall of death with a thousand Picantes and we’re going to settle this once and for all,” he told the crowd, who seemed unimpressed by the constant mocking.
“It needs to be sort of like... White City, Chiswick, maybe even throw Dean Street in there,” he instructed.
Ahead of one drop, he also requested full fee-paying members to dance, saying, “If you see anyone dancing to this next bit, they’re rich.”
At the end of the set, Skinner then appeared to cut the musical stylings 15 minutes short, with fireworks setting off after a final bit of crowd talk instead of the end of a song. As guests wandered out of the festival and immediately set about booking their Addison Lees, you couldn’t help feel like maybe it was lost on them.
Soho House Festival has been running since 2007, when it was first hosted at Chiswick House. Like Soho House, the Soho House Festival is a members-only event, primarily available to Soho House members and their guests.
The 2025 event was partnered with the charity War Child, which helps support children affected by war. War Child was also the sponsor between 2013 and 2017. In other years, the event has been hosted at Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath. During this time, proceeds were raised for the conservation and care of Kenwood House, as well as Unicef.
