While official events on May 5 and 6 have now been and gone, including a military parade, a flypast by the famous Red Arrows, and a ceremony at the cenotaph, there is still a score of events scheduled, including a special thanksgiving service as Westminster Abbey on Thursday.
Here’s a run-down of what’s in store for 2025.
Beyond Victory, official events at Westminster Abbey
Getty Images
A special season of events is to take place at Westminster Abbey this year. On VE Day and throughout the summer, ceremonies, displays and talks will pay homage to Britain’s efforts 80 years ago.
The invitation-only service – last year 25,000 people attended – is on May 8, though it will also be televised on the BBC. Before that, here’s a diary of what’s in store:
AFP via Getty Images
- The Parliament Choir will be in concert inside Westminster Hall. This is expected to be televised.
- The aforementioned thanksgiving service will take place at Westminster Abbey, as well as a concert at Horse Guards Parade, open to 10,000 members of the public and with military bands on show. Ticket details can be found via tickets.householddivision.org.uk though haven’t yet been released.
- After the bank holiday spectacles, there will be further events to mark VE Day’s 80th anniversary throughout May and June. Bookings can be made via the Westminster Abbey website.
Westminster walking tours, selected dates
- Blue Badge guide Katie Wignall from Look Up London will lead guests on a reflective 90-minute walk around Westminster’s monuments and memorials, telling stories that shaped the war and discussing London’s place in history and its wartime legacy.
Lunchtime talk: The People’s Victory, May 14
- Historian professor Lucy Noakes will give a talk on emotion, grief and the anxieties of a nation during a period of profound unsettlement and change.
Panel: Destruction, Restoration, Commemoration, Tuesday 27
- As part of the V&A’s Culture in Crisis programme, a conversation led by a panel of experts will uncover stories of recovery and resilience in the face of abject sorrow and change.
An evening with Sir Max Hastings: Commemoration and RemembranceJune 3
- The British journalist, historian and former Standard editor Sir Max Hastings will talk about why Remembrance remains as vital as ever in honour of the bravery and sacrifice of British and Commonwealth personnel.
- An evening of dance, crafts, history and music is to be held in the gardens at Westminster Abbey, with swing and jive lessons for all comers. There will also be an opportunity to create origami cranes to display at twilight-lit memorials.
Getty Images
Is Remembrance still working? at the National Army Museum
At the National Army Museum in Chelsea, two grandchildren of high-ranking officers from opposite sides of the war will come together to discuss Remembrance and its place in modern times.
Henry Montgomery, grandson of Field Marshal Bernard ‘Monty’ Montgomery, and Angela Findlay, granddaughter of General Karl von Graffen of the German Wehrmacht, will join historian Dr Daniel Cowling to reflect on their respective grandfather’s actions and positions in the war.
Traces of Belsen at the Wiener Holocaust Library
The Wiener Holocaust Library has opened a new exhibition, Traces of Belsen, which pays tribute to the liberation of the German concentration camp where almost half of the 120,000 prisoners died.
Photos, artefacts, stories and more are on show, including a diary smuggled into the camp by the daughter of the Bloomsbury library’s founder, Dr Alfred Wiener, which tells the horrifying truths of life for Jewish prisoners there.
VE Day in the Gardens at Stephens House and Gardens, Finchley
Stephens House
At Stephens House and Gardens in Finchley will be war film screenings, maypole dancing, and other celebrations, as well as a collection of wartime objects collated by the Finchley Society.
The idea is to recreate the day in 1945 and there will also be an opportunity to take a photo, capturing the same scene 80 years on.
Choir performance at the Imperial War Museum
Local choirs are to come together for an afternoon of songs from the 1940s up until the present day at the Imperial War Museum.
Organised in collaboration with Sweet Track Productions, the day “will evoke the unique blend of relief, celebration, sadness and community felt across the country 80 years ago, as the Second World War in Europe came to an end”.
Monday May 5 at the Imperial War Museum, iwm.org.uk
The Party at the Royal Albert Hall
AFP via Getty Images
The Armed Forces charity, the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Families Association (SSAFA), will salute “Our Greatest Generation” with music, dance and stories at the Royal Albert Hall.
The evening will include a performance from the RAF Squadronaires, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, and personal accounts from those who were there 80 years ago.
Experience on board HMS Wellington
The warship HMS Wellington, moored on the Victoria Embankment, will begin celebrations with a flag raising ceremony on May 8, which all can witness from the riverbank.
The vessel will then be open to the public, with tea, coffee and “wartime” biscuits served on the Quarterdeck (to be paid for) and a performance from the Glenn Miller Orchestra Band. All the money raised will go to the Wellington Trust which works to preserve the ship.
Brushstrokes from the Front Lines exhibition at gallery@oxo
The trailblazing British war artist Doris Zinkkeisen, once a British Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade volunteer, painted moving, elegant artworks of scenes she witnessed during the war, including hospital wards, night raids, rescue missions and the repatriation of prisoners of war.
Zinkkeisen’s paintings are to be displayed for the first time as part of a VE Day exhibition at gallery@oxo in May. Also shown will be her paintings from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after it was liberated – she was one of the first artists to visit, having been commissioned by the British Red Cross to do so.