South Kensington took on a festive air over the weekend of Saturday 6 and Sunday 7 June as crowds flocked to the Great Exhibition Road Festival. It marked the 175th anniversary of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park devised by Queen Victoria’s German husband Prince Albert. After that hugely successful show finished in 1851, the pioneering glass building was dismantled and re-erected at Sydenham Hill, now known as Crystal Palace.
Billed as a celebration of science and the arts, the 2026 festival’s marquees and stalls lining Exhibition Road and Imperial College Road fed both mind and body. You could sample climate-friendly snacks, build a DNA helix out of paper, learn about Britain’s first black musical superstar (Samuel Coleridge Taylor), experiment with cyanotype printing or… learn to play steelpan.
Crowds of eager children, and some pan-curious adults, flocked to the introductory sessions run by Britain’s oldest steelband, Nostalgia. The enthusiasm of band members was rewarded with joy on the faces of youngsters as they discovered they could create beautiful sounds themselves and, even after a few minutes, begin to play a recognisable tune. Nostalgia is Notting Hill’s only remaining pan-round-the-neck side, so players left the tent and made a little round down to the end of Exhibition Road, bringing the music to the people.
There was a bit of education smuggled in with entertainment, as Haroun Shah explained some of the sound science behind the steelpan. Posters provided details about sound waves, tone, amplitude and so on to youngsters who may have been dreaming of future studies at Imperial College on the other side of the road. As it requires no truck or amplification, pan round the neck is not just practical but also energy-efficient, non-polluting, and environmentally friendly – very on-trend!
Appropriately, as we were close to the Natural History Museum, festival-goers could also admire a colourful ‘carnival of the animals’ in the form of Serendipity Arts’ large, puppet-style figures in vibrant Indian outfits leading an elephant, a horse, a camel and a bird, which naturally proved a huge hit with the kids. Delhi-based Serendipity Arts has a presence at this year’ prestigious Venice Biennale art exhibition and also runs its own festival in Goa, India.
This was an inspiring and well-organised event – and if it’s rerun next year, the science and engineering behind large carnival costume construction might be a theme worth exploring.
