Hackney,
London’s gig capital
London’s live music has a map, and it leans north and east. Three boroughs (Hackney, Camden and Islington) host half of the city’s upcoming gigs.
Where London’s live music beats
Each borough is shaded by its number of upcoming gigs: the warmer the colour, the more live music. Pick a genre to see where it gathers. The inner north-east glows; most of outer London stays pale.
All listed gigs. Hackney leads (971), ahead of Camden (865) and Islington (573).
The 32 boroughs and the City, busiest first
The exact count of upcoming gigs, borough by borough. In orange, Inner London.
Inner London (ONS definition: 13 boroughs and the City) = 4,558 gigs, 94% of listed gigs. Seven outer boroughs (Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon and Sutton) have none listed.
Three things the map reveals
The north-east triangle
Hackney, Camden and Islington stage 2,409 gigs between them, half of London’s total. From Dalston to Camden Town and Highbury, they form the densest live circuit in the capital, built on small independent venues.
Free music lives in Hackney
Hackney hosts 173 of the 370 free gigs we list, nearly half. Free-entry nights in its bars and venues make it the easiest place in London to catch a band without a ticket.
Classical goes to church
Filter by “Classical” and the map flips: 54% of classical concerts are in Westminster, mostly in its churches, from St Mary le Strand to St Martin-in-the-Fields. Jazz has its own home: Camden, carried by the Jazz Cafe, hosts 34% of London’s jazz gigs.
What London plays
Breakdown of upcoming gigs by genre. Pop, rock and indie lead, with electronic music close behind (27%). Each genre has its own geography: explore it on the map above.
Press kit
Ready-to-quote figures, a royalty-free map and open data. Free to reuse with a link to TicketPiazza (CC BY 4.0).
Hackney is London’s gig capital: 971 upcoming gigs, one in five across the city.
Three boroughs (Hackney, Camden and Islington) host half of all upcoming gigs in London: 2,409 of 4,826.
Inner London stages 94% of the capital’s gigs; seven outer boroughs have none listed this autumn.
Nearly half of London’s free gigs are in Hackney: 173 of 370.
Classical music has its own map: 54% of London’s classical concerts are in Westminster, mostly in its churches.
Downloads
↓ The table (Excel) ↓ Raw data (CSV)Heat map (keeps the genre selected above, with the source printed on the image) and a table of the 33 areas × 8 genres, with rank, share, free gigs and number of venues. CC BY 4.0 licence.
How to cite
Source: London Live Music Barometer, TicketPiazza, autumn 2026. Contact: contact@ticketpiazza.com.
Methodology. Snapshot taken on 3 November 2026. The map and every figure cover the 4,826 upcoming gigs at venues in Greater London listed by TicketPiazza (sources: official ticket sellers and partner listings). Of the 4,865 gigs in our London catalogue, those held outside Greater London and those without a venue are left out; a gig listed by several sources is counted once. Each venue is placed in its borough by its postcode (ONS Postcode Directory, via postcodes.io), or by its location when the postcode is missing. We do not claim to cover every gig in London, only the venue programme we list. We count programming only: no ticket sales, no prices, no attendance. The “real map” follows the official local authority boundaries (Office for National Statistics, Open Government Licence v3.0; contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024; postcode data also contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right); the “schematic” is a grid with one square per borough, for readability. Frozen edition.