Open House Festival is a London-wide festival that opens up and celebrates the city’s architecture, special sites and neighbourhoods, with open days and events taking place across all 33 London boroughs.
Open House Festival would not be possible without our amazing community of volunteers, who help contributors to open up their buildings and run their events. It’s a rewarding experience filled with opportunities to learn about London’s architecture and heritage, and to meet like-minded people.
As an Open House Festival volunteer you will get to know one or more of the amazing sites in the festival programme, meet new people, develop skills in stewarding and enjoy a fun day or evening out in a stunning London location. You will also get priority entry to many buildings across the wider festival programme.
You can find out more about what being an Open House Festival volunteer involves here.
Here’s what some of our volunteers from 2023 thought:
“Volunteering provides a more immersive and satisfying way of experiencing the festival.”
“It’s great to be able to spend a bit more time looking closely and soaking up the atmosphere of a place.”
“Marvellous experience. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Great fun meeting people and sharing my love of London’s amazing history with them.”
If you already have a visitor account, you can convert it to a volunteer account here.
Open House Festival is run by Open City, a charity dedicated to making architecture, special sites and neighbourhoods more open, accessible and equitable. If you enjoy the festival and would like to support us to keep staging it, while at the same time enjoying a year-round programme of specially curated tours and events, please consider becoming an Open City Friend.
Your support will enable life-changing educational programmes for children and young people from under-represented communities, help open up critical debate on the big issues that shape the urban landscape today by supporting Open City’s year-round programme of free podcasts, films and advocacy, and help us to keep running the Open House Festival, allowing tens of thousands of people access to places and conversations they are normally locked out of.
If you’d like to know more about the Friends scheme, its benefits and how we use your money, email friends@open-city.org.uk or visit this page.
Open House Festival attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors. We work with leading private and public sector organisations including most London boroughs and the Greater London Authority to engage large audiences with built projects and brands.
If you are interested in becoming an Open House Festival partner, please get in touch by writing to sponsorship@openhouse.org.uk.