About our Notting Hill Carnival news
Latest news on the Notting Hill Carnival, an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966 on the streets of the Notting Hill area of Kensington, over the August Bank Holiday weekend.
The Notting Hill Carnival is led by members of the British Caribbean community, and attracts around two million people annually, making it one of the world's largest street festivals, and a significant event in British African Caribbean and British Indo-Caribbean culture.
The carnival has two separate but connected origins: a "Caribbean Carnival" organised by Claudia Jones in 1959 as a response to the Notting Hill race riots, and a "hippie" London Free School-inspired festival in 1966 initiated by Rhaune Laslett to promote cultural unity.
The Notting Hill Carnival features a parade of colourful costumes, music from steel bands, reggae and salsa artists, and food stalls selling traditional Caribbean dishes like curried goat, roti and jerk chicken. The carnival also has a history of sound systems, which are large collections of speakers and amplifiers that play music at high volume. The first sound system at the carnival was brought by Duke Vin in 1973, who is credited as a co-founder of the event.