In early July, a year after the start of the London Summer Games, the site of the Olympic Park was resurrected as the city’s newest green space. Christened Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, the area was reopened with a bang thanks to the weekend-long Wireless Festival, a massive music event boasting acts including Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Emeli Sandé, Calvin Harris and Jessie Ware. But that’s just the start of what the new site has planned for the year. Here are our picks for the best upcoming Olympic Park events:
Billed as “the big bash for little people,” this is the U.K.’s largest festival ever for children. The three-day event has a calendar packed with various sports and activities such as hula-hoop and Frisbee games, theater performances, art workshops, celebrity entertainers and appearances from children’s icons such as Skylanders SWAP Force and Shaun the Sheep, all aimed at the 10-and-under crowd and making for a great family-friendly summer’s day out. August 16 to 18
This event, staged almost a year after the end of the 2012 Paralympic Games, celebrates disability sport and arts. The Mayor of London’s Liberty Festival will showcase the creative talents of deaf and disabled artists, with highlights including street theater, dance, music, film, visual arts and food, while there will also be a program of Paralympic sports in the eye-catching Copper Box venue, which held various events during last year’s Olympics. September 7
Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is heaving with world-class sporting venues, including the Aquatics Centre and the Lee Valley VeloPark, so it’s no surprise that it’s scheduled to host several major international competitions in the coming years. It is already committed to the Rugby World Cup in 2015 and World Athletics Championships in 2017. But if you wish to see something sooner, consider the Badminton London Grand Prix — a major badminton event to be held in the aforementioned Copper Box that will feature 243 hotly contested matches. October 1 to 6
