V&A East Museum is staying open until 10pm every Thursday until the end of September, with a free rotating DJ residency, a pop-up bar and after-hours access to its exhibitions. Tomorrow night brings Gabriel Moses and Karen Nyame KG.
The museum opened in Stratford in April and has spent the summer working out what it wants to be after dark. The answer, for now, is a music night: V&A East has turned Thursdays into a late programme running to 22:00, with DJs on the Upper Ground level, drinks from Café Jikoni and the top-floor terrace open over the Olympic Park.
The whole thing is free, apart from the exhibition ticket. That is worth saying plainly, because a free museum late with a proper DJ line-up is a rarer thing in London than it should be.
upperground: the DJ series
The residency is called upperground, it runs 18:30 to 21:30 every Thursday until 24 September, and it takes its cue from the museum’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story. Expect dancehall, amapiano and garage through house, jungle and afrotech, depending who is on.
Thursday 27 August is Karen Nyame KG, presented with BBC Introducing as part of the BBC’s Music is Black season. A pioneer of UK funky, and one of the few DJs whose nickname, the Goddess of Rhythm, is doing accurate rather than promotional work. Josh Caffé, Polyjammerous and Gloria Rose have already had turns.
Then it runs through September:
- 3 September — Lo-Low. East London techno, and a CV that takes in Fold, Somerset House, Kew Gardens, Pxssy Palace and Boiler Room
- 10 September — Zakia. BBC Radio 6 Music host, splicing house, afrobeats and the more experimental end of things
- 17 September — Demae. Alternative soul and jazz, and a support slot on Jorja Smith’s tour behind her
- 24 September — A.G. Grime, garage, drill, R&B and hip hop, and the last night of the series
Gabriel Moses, tomorrow only
The one to plan around is on the same night. Photographer and filmmaker Gabriel Moses is in conversation with V&A East curator Josephine Small at 19:00 on Thursday 27 August, for the latest edition of the museum’s A Life in the Work of Others series. He has shot Dave, Skepta and Little Simz, and made campaigns for Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Dior, all before turning 30.
It’s free, and it is already sold out. A limited allocation of walk-up tickets goes on the door on the night, first come first served, so turning up early is the whole strategy. Failing that, his first narrative film, The Last Hour (2025), screens in the Film Room in the Why We Make galleries the same evening, and that needs no ticket at all.
What else is open
The Music is Black: A British Story runs 125 years of Black music-making in Britain, from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor through to Joan Armatrading, Massive Attack, Skunk Anansie, Craig David, JME, Stormzy and Tems. Last entry is 21:00 on Thursdays and tickets start at £9.50, the only part of the evening you pay for.
The permanent Why We Make galleries stay open until 22:00, along with the New Work commissions from Tania Bruguera, Turner Prize-nominated Rene Matić and Laura Wilson, both shops and Café Jikoni.
Museums are at their most powerful when they bring people together around ideas, stories and shared experiences. Our Thursday late nights at V&A East Museum create a space where music, art, food and conversation meet.
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, Director, V&A East
The London x London Take: museum lates usually mean a queue for a warm glass of wine and a room too full to see anything. This one has the opposite problem in the best sense, in that there is more on than you can do in three and a half hours. Our advice is to treat the exhibition as the main event, get there by seven, and let the DJ set be the thing you drift into afterwards with a drink rather than the reason you came. The terrace at dusk is the bit nobody mentions and the bit you will remember.
Need to know
- Where: V&A East Museum, 107 Carpenters Road, Stratford, London E20 2AR
- When: Every Thursday until the end of September, open to 22:00. upperground runs 18:30 to 21:30 until 24 September
- Price: Free to enter. The Music is Black: A British Story from £9.50, last entry 21:00
- Gabriel Moses: Thursday 27 August, 19:00 to 20:30, free, sold out with limited walk-ups on the night
- Nearest station: Stratford
- More: vam.ac.uk/east
Making a night of it in the area? Our guide to the best restaurants in Stratford has where to eat before, and the best exhibitions in London covers the rest of the autumn.
