Weeks before Carnival begins, the city is already stirring. In school halls, children stamp out dance steps their great grandparents refused to forget. In community centres, men and women bend wire, cloth and sequins, working through the night because culture does not build itself. In the pan yards, steelbands play until the walls shake, reminding London that we are here. This labour of love - unpaid, unseen, uncelebrated - is what makes Carnival. And it never makes the headlines.
What does make the headlines are the familiar warnings: too costly, too dangerous, too unruly for the streets of west London. The same predictions of chaos are wheeled out year after year. And yet, every August Bank Holiday, the people come. Over a million. They come because Carnival is more than a party. It is freedom rehearsed in public. It is culture lived in fullness. It is medicine for a city that badly needs it.
This year, Carnival is better resourced than ever. Extra funding means more trained stewards on the ground, a team of crowd experts both in control centres and on the ground, greater use of technology for crowd management, more CCTV to mention just a few positive additions for 2025. Some of these changes will be obvious such as large screens to help manage and guide crowds, but much of it will go unnoticed by the general public, allowing people to continue to enjoy Carnival for all the things that matter.
Families can look forward to a magical Children’s Day on Sunday, while Monday’s parade will once again deliver the spectacle recognised around the world: Mas bands in feathers, gems and traditional costume. Sound Systems, Steelpan, Calypso and Soca echoing through the streets.
We have worked with our partners; from local councils, transport providers, health services and the police to make sure safety is strengthened without losing spirit. The people’s festival must remain in the people’s hands.
Critics focus on Carnival’s cost but rarely speak of its value. The numbers alone are impressive, with The Mayor of London citing that it generates almost £400 million for London’s economy each year, with restaurants, traders, shops, hotels and transport all benefitting. For many small businesses and artisans, Carnival makes the difference between survival and collapse.
But the true value cannot be measured in pounds. Carnival is cultural infrastructure. Carnival is more than a festival - it is a form of cultural healing. For decades, it has offered Londoners a way to gather, release stress, celebrate identity and build solidarity - outcomes every public health body agrees are crucial. In a city that often leaves people isolated and under pressure, Carnival restores. Studies show that music, dance and collective joy strengthen mental health, reduce loneliness and build trust. You see that on the streets when a million strangers move together to the same rhythm. For young people, Carnival is a mirror that reflects them back whole. For elders, it is proof their culture has not been erased. For all of us, it is a reminder that we belong to something larger than ourselves. That is medicine.
Carnival was not handed to us. It was claimed by those the state ignored. In 1959, after the Notting Hill race riots, Claudia Jones responded with a Caribbean Carnival indoors - culture as healing in the face of violence. In the years that followed, Rhaune Laslett, Russell Henderson and Leslie Palmer carried that vision into the streets, shaping the parade and static sound systems that we know today.
Carnival turned hostility into joy. That inheritance is alive in every sound system, every costume, every step on the parade route. When critics call Carnival a problem, what they often mean is that it is too powerful, too uncontainable, too free. That is exactly why it matters.
London today faces division, economic strain and what experts describe as a loneliness epidemic. Carnival is an answer to all of it. It is the opposite of fragmentation: over a million people sharing space without barriers. It proves that joy can be collective, not only individual. It offers a vision of the city we need more of, not less.
Walk down Ladbroke Grove during Carnival and you will see children dancing beside grandparents, and music echoing through the streets. The generations move to the same rhythm. The air is thick with jerk smoke and curry goat, a scent that wraps itself around you before you even see the stalls. Colours flash past - sequins, feathers, flags raised high - as the procession moves forward.
Basslines roll through your chest, rattling brick and bone alike, and for a moment the crowd becomes a single body, dancing, singing, laughing. Strangers lock eyes and smile as if they’ve always known each other. What you are witnessing is not indulgence or entitlement. It is survival, creativity, solidarity.
Carnival is not an escape from London’s challenges. It is a rehearsal for how London might overcome them.
This year, Carnival will be better resourced and just as joyful. You are invited to come and experience it for yourself. Walk the streets. Taste the food. Maybe let the music move you. For two days, London remembers itself - not as a city of isolation and hurry, but as a place where joy is a right, not a privilege.
Carnival is not a burden on the city or “on the brink”. It is a gift.
Matthew Philip is CEO of Notting Hill Carnival
