The UK’s original podcast festival is already four days deep at Kings Place, and the half nobody has used up yet is the better half. Paloma Faith, Judi Love, the Guilty Feminist and both No Such Thing As A Fish shows all land between Wednesday and Sunday. Tickets start at £10.
Eleven years in and the London Podcast Festival still feels like the best kind of niche obsession made public. What started as Europe’s first major podcast festival in 2016 has welcomed over 68,000 visitors and 750 podcasts to its Kings Place stages, and the 2026 edition is as eclectic as any it has put together.
It runs to Sunday 13 September across all of Kings Place’s spaces, from the main hall to the canal-side terrace, with selected shows also available via livestream. The programme spans comedy, film, gardening, wrestling, disability-led storytelling, audio drama, current affairs and British Asian culture, which is either a sign of podcasting’s remarkable range or of a festival that has genuinely never met a genre it did not want to platform.
Wednesday 9 September
The Power of a Book with Rachel Parris, at 7.30pm, brings on Sophie Duker and Nina Conti to talk about the books that rearranged them. A late addition to the programme and a strong one.
Thursday 10 September
Richard Bacon is back with Why Are You More Successful Than Me?, his interview series asking successful people the question that keeps him up at night. Guest confirmed is Johnny Vaughan.
Also on: Ade Oladipo Presents… The Green Chair LIVE, which sold out its debut last year and returns with a bigger night of boxing, football, culture and surprise guests, and Tommy’s Brownload.
Friday 11 September
Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil is the night’s headline, and Paloma Faith has been added to it alongside Kyla Cobbler. Jamil’s self-described anti-inspirational comedy disaster podcast asks guests for their most humiliating true stories, and it works better live than it has any right to. This is its festival debut.
Elsewhere that evening, Life After Prison with Zak Addae-Kodua and Jules Rowan, and The Truth (In My Opinion) with Cody Dahler, featuring Jen Brister.
Saturday 12 September, the big one
The busiest day of the festival by a distance:
- No Such Thing As A Fish at 7pm, plus their listener correspondence show Drop Us A Line live for the first time ever at 4.30pm. Both have a livestream option, and both will go first
- Wrestle Me! at 4.30pm, back after seven years of sold-out shows. If you know, you know
- Beef and Dairy Network Podcast at 2pm, Benjamin Partridge’s genuinely strange award-winning comedy, with a brand-new live edition and a livestream
- Ask the Nincompoops at 11.30am, Andy Stanton and Carrie Quinlan answering children’s trickiest questions very, very badly, which is an accurate description and a recommendation
- Black Prose, Yolanthe Fawehinmi’s archive of Black writers’ stories, and Shaping Tomorrow, the BSL-interpreted podcast spotlighting deaf and hearing creatives
Sunday 13 September
The Guilty Feminist closes things out at 2pm with its Road to Gilead Project, Deborah Frances-White joined by Tom Stroud and Dan Shrigley of Shoulder to Shoulder. Judi Love follows at 4.30pm with Our Table, and NonCensored with Rosie Holt, Brendan Murphy and Eshaan Akbar brings on Sooz Kempner and Will Sebag-Montefiore.
The part most people miss: Maker Weekend
Running alongside the shows on the Saturday and Sunday is a strand of workshops for anyone who has ever thought about starting a podcast and then not started one. Six sessions across the weekend: 7 Steps to Making a Comedy Podcast, Why Make a Podcast Now?, What Are Charting Podcasts Doing on Socials?, I Started a Podcast, What Now?, Help! Podcasting Melted My Brain and How to Start a Podcast.
They are the least publicised part of the programme and probably the most useful, particularly if the reason you are going in the first place is that you would secretly like to be on the other side of the microphone.
What has already gone
For the record, the first half took in the Guardian’s Science Weekly with Ian Sample and Michael Safi, The World’s Coolest Disabled with Rosie Jones and Shani Dhanda, Caitlin Moran and Adam Frost’s new gardening show Outsiding with Lou Sanders, Tia Kofi, the Empire Film Podcast, Chart Music, Disniversity and a full Sunday of audio drama including Wooden Overcoats. Worth knowing for next year’s diary.
The London x London Take: this festival has figured out something a lot of live events have not, which is that the point is not to replicate the podcast but to make something that can only happen in a room. The intimacy between fans and creators is real, the programming is diverse rather than performatively so, and tickets from £10 keep it accessible. If you are only doing one day, make it Saturday, and book the Fish shows before you book anything else because they always go first. If you are doing one thing, make it a Maker Weekend workshop, because you can listen to a podcast anywhere and you cannot get an hour with the people who make them anywhere.
Need to know
- Where: Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG
- When: running now to Sunday 13 September 2026
- Price: from £10
- Livestream: selected shows available globally, including both Fish shows and Beef and Dairy
- Nearest station: King’s Cross St Pancras
- Booking: kingsplace.co.uk
Planning the rest of the week? Our roundup of things to do in London this week has what else is worth booking.
