After dark
London after midnight: what is still on tonight
Everything that runs past midnight, sorted by how late it goes. Plus the last tube, the night buses and what the door will actually ask you for.
79 listings run past midnight in the next eight weeks, the latest until 06:00.
This is the part of the evening the rest of London stops writing about. Everything below runs past midnight, sorted by how late it actually goes, and every time here was read off the venue’s own booking page rather than assumed.
It is worth knowing what late means in London. The tube mostly stops around half past midnight, the Night Tube only runs on Friday and Saturday, and a room advertising three in the morning will usually have shut its door at one. Plan the end of the night before the start of it.
Still going at three
All 76The genuinely late ones. Most are club nights, and most will not let you in much after two, so this is a list to leave for rather than arrive at.
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Clubs £15 on the door
The 100 Club: 6T’s Northern Soul All-nighter
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Clubs From £25
EartH Hackney: Spray, The Trip and more
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Clubs £29.87
EartH Hackney: Pola and Bryson, live world debut
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Clubs From £30.50
EartH Hackney: HAAi, open to close
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Clubs From £18.54
EartH Hackney: Mietze Conte
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Clubs £41.20
EartH Hackney: Takuya Nakamura, live
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Clubs £3 to £7
Electric Ballroom: LOOP
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Gigs £10
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Jam
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Clubs From £12.06
Clapham Grand: Charli XCX vs Slayyyter
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Clubs £3 to £7
Electric Ballroom: LOOP
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Gigs £10
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Jam
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Clubs £10
BeefMince
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Clubs £3 to £7
Electric Ballroom: LOOP
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Gigs £10
Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Jam
Still going at two
All 3Late enough that the tube has stopped on most nights. Check the night bus before you commit.
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Clubs From £9, £6 concession
Disco 54: Re-Mixed at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
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Clubs £3 to £7
Electric Ballroom: LOOP
Getting home
The last tube on most lines goes somewhere around half past midnight, earlier than people expect and earlier on a Sunday. On Friday and Saturday nights the Night Tube runs all night on five lines, the Victoria, Central, Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly, plus the Windrush line on the Overground between Highbury and Islington and New Cross Gate, which is the one almost nobody counts and the one that gets you south east. Together they cover a good deal of where you would actually be.
Every other night, the night buses are the answer. They carry an N in front of the number, they run all night every night, and most of them pass through Trafalgar Square or Aldwych, so the rule of thumb is to get to the middle and change there. They take the same fare and the same card as a daytime bus.
We have written this up properly in getting home after midnight, and there is a guide to the Night Tube.
On the door
Almost everything on this page is over 18s and a good deal of it is over 21s. Photo identification is checked properly at the late venues, including places you would not expect it, and a dress code is common after about eleven. Several of the rooms here work on tables or guest list rather than a queue, so turning up hopefully is not the way in.
Last entry is usually well before closing. A club listed until three will often stop letting people in at one, which is the single most common way an evening goes wrong.
Cabaret and burlesque covers the rooms that put on a show rather than a club night, and London after dark covers what stays open more broadly.
Times are what the venue published when we checked, not a promise. Closing times move with the night, the licence and the crowd, so confirm with the venue before you travel, especially if you are going late or going far.