Financial Times Weekend Festival Review
Financial Times Weekend Festival is a one-day festival for Financial Times readers to engage with journalists and one another. This year the event took place on Saturday 7th September in the grounds of Kenwood House. My friend and I have never been but we both had a great day filled with talks, wine tasting and celeb spotting.
Once through security we were able choose one of four festival personalities and receive a tote bag with said l image- I chose the globe trotter. After grabbing a coffee from one of the food vendors, we had a quick walk around to familiarise ourselves with the layout. Each tent has its own program of events centred around its theme. The tents include: finance, literature and life, tech, travel, arts, food and drink, house and home as well as the Big Ideas and FT future tents. We’d had a look at the itinerary a couple of days prior and had starred the ones we were intrigued by. We’d agreed we’d separate to enable us to hear what we wanted and meet up later for certain sessions like the wine tasting. We’d recommend strategising your approach. My approach was to try to do the activities like sketching, wine tasting and non-alcoholic spirit tasting- events I couldn’t do from home whereas my friend focused on the topic in each area that fascinated her such as how to double your money and listening to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
It’s a packed program with gates opening at 9:30 and the last sessions ending 18:45. There was a free shuttle bus to and from Golders Green station which was useful. The sessions generally start on the hour and last about 30-45minutes giving about 15minutes to get to your next session. For popular events you will need to leave the previous section earlier- we just managed to get into the non-alcoholic spirit tasting but missed getting a seat in the tent to hear Sir Ian McKellen discuss his latest movie The Critic. Positively, all the events are recorded and can be accessed for 90 days online so intend to listen to this one as well as many others such as ‘how ancient India transformed the world’, ‘the rise of the armchair sleuth’ and ‘the future of culture’.
There’s a variety of food trucks serving up pizza, burgers, Thai, ice cream, pancakes and much more. There’s seating outside to enjoy the food, though right when we were eating it started to rain. As it’s semi-outdoors we’d suggest taking an umbrella.
Highlights of my day were seeing Ian McKellen and listening to stage actor Simon Russel Beale discuss Shakespeare. We also were excited to have spotted Helena Bonham-Carter! We didn’t know it at the time but there was even the directors of CIA and M16 together in person on the stage talking about foreign policy.
It was such a varied and fun day. There really is something for everyone, including a children’s tent and a pet therapy session. We’ve already looked up tickets for next year and have told other friends about this event.
Financial Times Weekend Festival returns on 6 September 2025 from 9:30am to 7pm at Kenwood House. If this year is anything to go by, it’s sure to bw filled with riveting debate, performances, wine and food tasting and more.
Website: https://ukftweekendfestival.live.ft.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/financialtimeslive
#FTWeekendFestival
Written by Caitlin Neal
