Channel 1 Los Angeles
10/11/2021 London
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan is inviting Londoners and visitors to enjoy Pop-Up London – a free culture festival of family-friendly performances taking place in locations across central London during October half-term (23 to 31 October 2021).
The festival is the latest series of free public events to be staged as part of the Mayor’s Let’s Do London campaign – the biggest domestic tourism campaign our capital has ever seen. Let’s Do London exists to encourage Londoners and visitors from across the UK back into the centre of our city to enjoy our incredible culture safely and help boost the capital’s economic recovery. Pop Up London celebrates some of London’s most creative grassroots talents with more than 200 artists performing in more than 100 events across nine days. Performances include hip hop dance acts, musical comedy, storytelling, puppetry, circus skills, magic shows and many more.
In partnership with Battersea Arts Centre and Found in Music, Pop-Up London brings together artists, musicians and a range of performers from across the city to perform Trafalgar Square, Spitalfields E1, Canary Wharf and other locations across central London.
Pop-up London will showcase London’s rich cultural diversity and include performances from Brazilian, Cantonese, Caribbean and South East Asian artists with themes exploring climate change, the digital age, challenging gender stereotypes and Diwali. Details of the festival will be published on VisitLondon.com and the Visit London app to help families plan their visit to make the most of the festival as well as taking in London’s other famous attractions and world-class food and hospitality on offer over the half term holiday.
Before the pandemic, self-employed creative artists and freelancers made up nearly half of the jobs in the capital’s world-leading cultural and creative industries, but up to 60 per cent lost all of their work during the first lockdown.1 Pop-Up London is providing creative freelancers with a unique platform to perform to live audiences, after months of unemployment and income instability.
The Mayor continues to do all he can to support self-employed creatives in London, including supporting 11,500 artists through his Culture at Risk Business Support Fund. He is continuing to support the development of creative skills as part of the London Recovery Programme and is investing in jobs and growth opportunities for freelancers through his Creative Enterprise Zones, Creative Economy Growth Programme and flagship London Borough of Culture programme. Earlier this year Sadiq launched a new £225,000 programme to put creative freelancers at the heart of shaping new proposals to improve their working conditions. This will inform a new Freelancers Charter developed in partnership with the Creative Industries Federation that aims to safeguard creative freelancers in the future as London recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Also in half term, Little Amal, the 3.5 metre-tall living artwork of a young Syrian refugee child, will continue her 8,000km journey from the Turkey-Syria border with a series of stops in London, including the Southbank, V&A and Roundhouse. Breakin’ Convention, a hip hop theatre collective, will be hosting two evenings of rap battles and spoken word under the historic arches of Leadenhall Market on Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st October. Children under five travel also free with a fare-paying adult and if a child is under 11, they can travel free when travelling with an adult who is using pay as you go.
Channel 1 Los Angeles 