Things to do in London this October

Every October our Executive Programme delegates come to London to learn the best about products and enjoy London culture. We've hand-picked the best of it for the design leaders joining us this autumn:

A major Impressionist's biggest UK show in decades, a sound artist taking over the Turbine Hall, the city's two leading art and design fairs landing in the same fortnight, a Hollywood lead making her stage return, and an award-winning film actress closing out the year in a new West End production.

This list runs longer than usual, so pick and choose what fits your week.

Amar Kanwar

When: Until 31 Jan 2027
Where: Serpentine North
Ticket Price: Free

A major solo exhibition bringing together new and existing films, including a new seven-screen installation, that turn Serpentine North into a meditative visual and sonic environment. Themes of decolonisation, displacement and memory, told through lyrical filmmaking.

PLATFORM: Simone Brewster

When: Until Jan 2027
Where: Design Museum
Ticket Price: Free

The Design Museum's annual free showcase of a contemporary design practice, this year London-based designer Simone Brewster: jewellery, furniture and a new sculptural bench, spanning four sections from 'Everyday Ornaments' to 'Body Narratives', with an accompanying sound installation. A quick, free stop if you're already at the museum for NIGO.

Autumn Knight: I Can't Complain

When: 29 Sep – 29 Nov 2026
Where: ICA
Ticket Price: Check ica.art

The first major UK presentation of the New York artist's work: a new commission alongside recent pieces, exploring complaint through installation, performance and video. The Lower Galleries are transformed with architectural elements, a balloon canopy and a sound installation of recorded everyday grievances.

Renoir and Love

When: 3 Oct 2026 – 31 Jan 2027
Where: National Gallery
Ticket Price:
£20 (off-peak, Sunday-Thursday)
£25 (Friday and Saturday, and all days in the first two weeks)
Under 18s go free

Over 50 Renoirs from the mid-1860s to mid-1880s, organised with the Musée d'Orsay and Boston MFA, tracing affection, seduction and urban sociability through the artist's most sociable decade. His 'Bal au Moulin de la Galette' (1876) is on UK display for the first time, the definitive image of Belle Époque Paris at leisure, and a masterclass in composing a crowd.

Painting the French Riviera

When: 2 Oct 2026 – 31 Jan 2027
Where: Royal Academy of Arts
Ticket Price: £24–£26

160+ works, including paintings, sculpture, travel posters and film, tracing how the Côte d'Azur seduced Picasso, Matisse, Cézanne, Renoir and Klein from the 1870s to the 1960s. Half art history, half branding case study: this is the exhibition that shows exactly how a stretch of coastline became a globally recognisable identity.

Hyundai Commission: Tarek Atoui

When: 13 Oct 2026 – 11 Apr 2027
Where: Tate Modern, Turbine Hall
Ticket Price: Free

The newest Turbine Hall commission: sound artist Tarek Atoui fills the space with custom instruments built from glass, water and ceramics, exploring how "listening" can be felt through more than hearing. A must for anyone working in sound, spatial or sensory design, this is what it looks like when an entire discipline is built around a single sense.

Anish Kapoor — last chance

When: Closes 18 Oct 2026
Where: Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
Ticket Price: £22

Kapoor's largest UK show to date closes this month. Monumental mirror sculptures, void-like pigment works and Vantablack-adjacent installations fill the entire gallery and its terraces. If you missed it in the summer, October is your last window.

NIGO: From Japan with Love — last chance

When: Closes 4 Oct 2026
Where: Design Museum
Ticket Price: From £15.29

700+ objects from NIGO's personal archive, tracing his path from Tokyo to Paris and the invention of 'scarcity by design' streetwear. Closes in the first week of the month, so catch it early if you're going.

Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art

When: Until 8 Nov 2026
Where: V&A South Kensington
Ticket Price: £28 (weekdays), £30 (weekends)

200+ objects spanning Elsa Schiaparelli's 1920s surrealism through to Daniel Roseberry's current maison, garments, jewellery, sculpture and perfume side by side. Closing in November, so October is a comfortable, less-crowded time to go before the final rush.

Cecilia Vicuña

When: 7 Oct 2026 – 14 Feb 2027
Where: Whitechapel Gallery
Ticket Price: £16.50 (£9.50 concessions)

The first major UK show for the Chilean artist, spanning six decades of painting, textile, film and her signature quipus, knotted sculptures based on Andean communication systems. Part of Whitechapel's 125th-anniversary programme, and a strong pick for anyone interested in craft, materials and non-Western systems thinking.

FESTIVALS

Frieze London

When: 14–18 Oct 2026 (public opens 15 Oct)
Where: The Regent's Park
Ticket Price: £38-£250

Curated sections spotlighting young galleries and emerging artists alongside the big names, the single most important week in the London art calendar. Frieze Sculpture runs free in the park itself from mid-September into early November, so you can see the outdoor works without a fair ticket.

PAD London

When: Preview 13 Oct, public days 14–19 Oct 2026
Where: Berkeley Square, Mayfair
Ticket Price: £30-£100, £15 for students

The UK's dedicated fair for 20th-century and contemporary design, with 66 exhibitors from 15 countries this year, seven of them new. Museum-quality historical pieces sit next to visionary contemporary work, with curated themes on transparency and the circle as a motif. If you only go to one design-specific fair this month, make it this one.

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair

When: 15–18 Oct 2026
Where: Somerset House
Ticket Price: £32 (£18 concessions)

Now in its 14th London edition, with a new spotlight section on Modernist African artists curated by Dr Nancy Dantas, plus a large-scale installation in the Fountain Court. Runs alongside Frieze Week, so the two make an easy joint itinerary.

Affordable Art Fair, Battersea Autumn

When: 14–18 Oct 2026
Where: Evolution London, Battersea Park
Ticket Price: Book via aafbattersea.seetickets.com

The friendlier, buyable counterpart to Frieze, with original work under £10,000 from galleries and independent artists, good for scouting names before they're everywhere. Also happening the same week as Frieze and PAD, if you want a full art-fair circuit.

BFI London Film Festival

When: 7–18 Oct 2026
Where: Cinemas across London
Ticket Price: Varies by screening

The UK's biggest film festival, screening new work from established and first-time directors across every major London cinema. Strong month for anyone in motion, title design or narrative branding to see what's coming out of festival premieres before wide release.

Halloween at Kew

When: 16 Oct – 1 Nov 2026, evenings
Where: Kew Gardens
Ticket Price: £19.50–£24

Kew's botanic glasshouses turned into an after-dark trail of lighting design, projection and set dressing, genuinely one of the better large-scale immersive/experiential design case studies running in the city this month, Halloween theming aside.

THEATRE

The Cherry Orchard

When: Opens 3 Oct 2026, booking to 9 Jan 2027
Where: Harold Pinter Theatre
Ticket Price: From £28

Kristin Scott Thomas leads Chekhov's tragicomedy of a family watching their estate, and their world, slip away, directed by Ian Rickson. One of the most anticipated straight-play openings of the autumn.

Fences

When: 6–31 Oct 2026
Where: Lyric Hammersmith
Ticket Price: From £13

August Wilson's 1950s-set drama about ambition, fatherhood and what stands in the way of a family's future, directed by Daniel Bailey. Short run, so book early.

Some Woman (world premiere)

When: 7 Oct – 21 Nov 2026
Where: National Theatre, Dorfman
Ticket Price: £20–£78

Anne-Marie Duff stars in Helen Edmundson's new play about an overlooked woman who takes a stand after a platform encounter goes wrong. A world premiere, and the first chance to see it anywhere.

Martin Guerre

When: 1–31 Oct 2026
Where: Old Vic
Ticket Price: Off-Peak £14.50–£71.50, Peak £16.50–£76.50.

A full reimagining of the Boublil/Schönberg musical, from the team behind Les Misérables, with new music, new orchestrations and a staging reconfigured in-the-round. Directed by Matthew Warchus as a season of preview performances.

The Lives of Others

When: Opens 14 Oct 2026, booking to 9 Jan 2027
Where: Adelphi Theatre
Ticket Price: From £38

Keira Knightley's stage return, in a new adaptation of the Oscar-winning film about a Stasi officer who begins to empathise with the couple he's surveilling in 1984 East Germany. One of the hottest tickets of the season.

Dirty Dancing (opening production)

When: Opens 16 Oct 2026
Where: Capital Theatre, Westfield London
Ticket Price: From £107

Not just a new production, but the opening show at London's newest theatre, purpose-built inside Westfield Shepherd's Bush. Worth going for the venue architecture and sightlines alone if you haven't seen the space yet.

MUSIC

LSO Season Opening: Mahler 2 & Fujikura

When: 18 & 22 Oct 2026
Where: Barbican Hall
Ticket Price: £18–£75

Sir Antonio Pappano opens the LSO's 2026/27 season with Dai Fujikura's 'Amber Alchemy' (UK premiere) and Mahler's Symphony No. 2, 'Resurrection', with full orchestra and chorus, one of the biggest sounds in classical music.

Steven Wilson with the Parallax Orchestra

When: 28–29 Oct 2026
Where: Royal Albert Hall
Ticket Price: Check royalalberthall.com

Wilson's only live shows of 2026: an expanded version of 'The Overview' performed with a full orchestra and choir. Two nights only, in one of London's best-sounding rooms.

ABBA Voyage

When: Ongoing residency, performances throughout October
Where: ABBA Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Ticket Price: £50–£281

Not new, but always worth mentioning: ABBA reunited on stage as digital avatars, built by Industrial Light & Magic. If you haven't been, it's still one of the most technically remarkable live shows anywhere, and a genuine case study in performance-capture design.