Tinsel and Tunes brings festive fun for the whole family

This year, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is trying something a bit different to bring out community members during the silly season. The Winter Adventure is a new festival which is imagined as a living Advent Calendar, with an event planned on each of the 24 nights in the lead up to Christmas. East Bank partners and businesses across the park are taking part, with family-friendly evenings designed to spread cheer and goodwill.  
 
UCL East was one of the first to present its festive offering. On Wednesday night, staff, students and members of the local community piled into the Ground Floor Cafe for an evening of music and magic.  
 
Serenaded by the UCL Live Music Society, punters enjoyed some classic festive songs such as All I Want for Christmas is You and Santa Tell Me. They also livened things up with some recent pop smashes such as Chappel Roan’s Good Luck Babe, and Dua Lipa’s Levitating. The crowd went wild for the encore, an ambitious cover of Love On Top, which managed to incorporate all five original key changes. No mean feat indeed.  

Photos by Lucy Pope

The event, which took place at the sensible hour of 6pm, was a lovely chance to welcome local families into our space, and it was heartwarming to see so many toddlers taking to the dance floor, or staring wide-eyed at the band, clearly agog at the obvious talent on show.  

Our friends at Gather and Gather put on a special Christmas menu, with the spicy mulled wine, a clear crowd favourite.  

Sara-Ellen, Head of Events at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the brainchild behind the Winter Adventure, shared her thoughts after attending the event: ‘It’s just so lovely to see such a cross-section of the community here, enjoying themselves and having some wholesome fun. Our aim was to create something accessible to welcome everyone and that that meant no-one was lonely in these colder months, and we’ve just been thrilled with how readily partners across the park have thrown themselves into the activity.’  

The Winter Adventure continues until 24 December. You can check out the full programme here.