Celebrating neurodiversity at Thamesmead Festival
As awareness of neurodiversity grows, Peabody's Senior Cultural Programme Manager, Lisa Drew, explains why embracing different ways of thinking is essential to creating more inclusive places.
Published: 05/08/2026
Roughly one in seven people in the UK is estimated to be neurodivergent*. For many of them, the summer festival experience can often be daunting, with large crowds, intense noise, and sensory-heavy environments.
Major music and arts festivals have increasingly introduced quiet sensory zones and calm spaces in response to growing public, industry and regulatory focus on accessibility and inclusion. This momentum has been reinforced by the UK House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee's Live and Electronic Music Fans' Charter, published in April 2026, which set out new principles and recommendations for improving accessibility across the live music sector.
As funders and organisers of the annual, free Thamesmead Festival, which attracts around 8,000 visitors, we welcome these provisions. But we believe that events should go beyond offering manageable experiences for neurodivergent people: they should be liberating spaces for expression.
This has been our focus for Thamesmead Festival 2026. Renowned for its commitment to inclusivity, our flagship event won the ‘Activation’ category in the 2025 Pineapple Awards. Judges praised it as a '100% community-powered' success: 'exciting,' 'ambitious,' and 'commendable for its dissolution of power to the people.'
Thamesmead Festival’s creative direction has been guided by a diverse, resident-led Festival Advisory Board (FAB) who have worked alongside us for several years. We’re pleased that the current board includes neurodiverse members, ensuring that their lived experience is central to the festival programme.
This year we have deepened our commitment to inclusivity, by celebrating neurodivergent perspectives at one of our four stages. Inside a big-top tent overlooking Southmere Lake, you’ll find the Slug Stage – an immersive sci-fi escape. Here giant space slugs from Saturn have taken over Thamesmead. To fight back, the Worms In Suits have enlisted a 'superhero' lineup of musicians and DJs, including Frank Chickens, Tobithefreak, Noon Garden, and the Heart n Soul DJs, all united to 'mosh for the soul of South London.'
The stage has been designed by a collective of 15 young artists, known as the ‘Worms in Suits’ from the Bexley charity Re-Instate, and developed with social arts and ecology agency Three Rivers and artist Rosie Ridgway (Associate Artist with inclusive arts pioneers Heart n Soul). We can’t wait to see their creativity unleashed and celebrated.
Complementing this space is the Free To Be Sensory Zone, established by Thamesmead artist Marcus Orlandi in 2024. It’s close enough to remain part of the festival's vibrant energy, yet far enough away to offer a quiet, sensory-friendly retreat from the main noise and crowds. Free to Be offers a menu of activities including a fossil dig, drumming workshops, and interactive sound installations. Marcus works in close collaboration with local SEND organisations, including Camouflage Cafe, Bexley Mencap, and the Javan Coker Foundation, to ensure the space genuinely meets the needs of neurodivergent visitors.
These inclusive spaces sit alongside everything else that makes Thamesmead Festival such a vibrant day out, with back-to-back performances across three additional stages, a bustling arts and crafts market, food stalls, a kids' zone, boating on Southmere Lake and more. This is all part of our ambition to create a festival where everyone can take part in the experience in the way that works for them. As always, we'll be asking visitors what they think so we can continue to learn and build on this year's success.
Everyone is welcome here. Come and see it for yourself. Entry is free and you don’t need a ticket.
📍 Southmere Park, Hartslock Drive, Thamesmead, London SE2 9XA
🗓️ Saturday 8 August
🕑 12 noon to 7.30pm
*Office for National Statistics FOI, January 2026