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This project successfully funded on 17th November 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
London's Day of the Dead 2025
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim
To create London Day of the Dead Festival on Saturday 1st November 2025; from midday on Columbia Road, London E2.
London’s Day of the Dead Festival
Saturday 1st November 2025
Columbia Road, East London E2
“The Mexican… is familiar with death. He jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favourite toys and his most steadfast love”
Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude
In 2017, we hosted our very first London Day of the Dead event. It began as a small gathering, but thanks to the incredible contributions of Sue Kritzman, Florent Bidois and The Colour Walk People, Mariachi Las Adelitas, Anu Kumar, Alondra and The Black Swan Morris Dancers, the support of the Columbia Road shops and businesses, Spear, Columbia School and the creative energy of so many others, the festival has grown beyond anything we ever imagined.
Every year, the creativity, imagination, and joy that each person brings is an intrinsic part of what makes this festival special.
Keeping the Festival Free
From the very beginning, we’ve worked hard to make this a free and inclusive celebration, reflecting the diversity of London and welcoming everyone. We want it to remain free forever.
However, as the festival continues to grow, so do the costs of organising it. If you would like to make a small contribution to help cover expenses and keep this unique celebration thriving, we would be deeply grateful.
About the Festival
On Saturday 1st November 2025, from 12pm onwards, Columbia Road will come alive with music, dance and colour to celebrate Mexican Día de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead.
Despite its name, the Day of the Dead is a joyful celebration, honouring loved ones who have passed and celebrating the life we continue to live. In Mexican tradition, it is believed that on this day, the spirits of our ancestors return to visit the living.
Famous for its flower market, Columbia Road is the perfect setting for this celebration as flowers are an intrinsic part of this festival. Marigolds, the traditional flower of the festival, adorn homes and altars, guiding the dead back to the world of the living and symbolising the transience of life.
The festival combines Pre-Columbian rituals over 3,000 years old with Christian All Hallows’ Eve traditions brought during colonisation, creating a unique and syncretic celebration. In Britain, All Hallows’ Eve itself has roots, tracing back to the Celtic festival of Samhain from 8th Century AD. It marked the end of harvest, when fires were lit for cleansing, the veil between worlds was believed to thin, and families welcomed the spirits of their ancestors to feast with them. Across the world, many cultures share this reverence for their departed: In China, the Hungry Ghost Festival offers food to ancestral spirits. In India, families honour seven generations with sacred water rituals and feasts. In Cambodia, one of the year’s most important festivals involves prayer, offerings, and even buffalo races!
Expect:
- The holistic Day of the Dead Beauty Parlour opens – get the look
- The day starts with a skeleton bike ride run by LCC through Tower Hamlets Cemetery and Nature Reserve.
- A death-related Mercado inn the school playground - come and ask a funeral director anything or have a go at needle felting a shroud.
- Morning yoga by local GP and dancer Anu Kumar
- The storytelling booth
- A dance performance by Mexican choreographer Alondra
- The procession is lead by the Las Adelitas an all female Mariachi band and we are joined by the Colour Walk People.
- Costumes inspiration by Posada’s Catrina, who despite all her finery is just bones, in death we are equal
Budget breakdown
Road Closure £500
Insurance £500
Stewarding of the event £636
Artist and entertainers £3600
Posters and publicity £500
Street decoration £200
Beauty Parlour £1350
Street decorations £150
Miscellaneous £100
All artists are paid properly and everyone earns the London Living Wage for working on this event.
Total £7500
Why It Matters
The Day of the Dead was celebrated spectacularly at the British Museum in 2009 and 2015, and famously featured in the opening sequence of the James Bond film Spectre. By bringing it to the streets of East London, we make the festival more inclusive, vibrant, and connected to community.
Our aim is to shift the conversation around death, for us to prepare for it, talk about it, and make peace with it. We want these discussions to happen with kindness, humour and curiosity and joy. For us death and the transience of life are unifying themes reminding us that our time together is brief. We believe that drawing on traditions of remembrance helps us face our mortality while honouring the beauty and fragility of life. In the worlds of Octavio Paz, “A culture that denies death denies life.” In honouring death, we celebrate life and our shared aliveness, that is the essence of London’s Day of the Dead Festival.
Beyond
If we reach beyond our target then all money donated will go towards our training and bereavement work with teachers and within schools within East London. According to research by Child Bereavement UK, 1 in 29 children will be bereaved of a parent or sibling before they turn 16. This works out as about one child in every class and the figure is higher than national average in Tower Hamlets, where our festival happens. Despite this, training in bereavement support is not a statutory part of training for teachers. We offer support educational setting - with teacher training or the development of an effective bereavement policy for schools or colleges. We can also help develop teaching resources to cover these topics with children.
Please visit our website www.letsdiscussdeath.co.uk
Please visit our website www.letsdiscussdeath.co.uk
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made