This short text will appear at the top of your listing on the festival website. Use it to introduce your building or event. If the text is from previous years, make sure that it’s still relevant to your plans for this year’s festival.

Once entered you won’t be able to edit the information in this section. If you do need to make changes to these details, please email openhouse@open-city.org.uk and a member of the team will help you.

If you haven’t already, please use this section to tell us the name of the architect responsible for your building, if relevant. Where additional construction or refurbishment has taken place, you might need to add more than one architect.

If you don’t know the name of your building’s architect, or if you’re unsure, or if you’re not proposing to open a building (e.g. you’re running a walking tour in the public realm), please leave this section blank.

If you have a personal or organisational website or social media account that you want to share with visitors, please add the details here. But please make sure you include all information relevant to your open day or event in your application form, rather than simply adding it to your website or social media.

If you don’t have anything to add here, that’s fine.

We recommend having at least two high-quality images for your listing. This will help encourage visitors to come along to your open day or event. Consider the range of different images that you use. For example, if you’re opening a building, it’s a good idea to share a mixture of exterior and interior shots. To maintain a consistent look and feel across the festival website, we ask that you only upload photographs and not other images. For example, please do not include any event posters.

Please only submit images that you own or that are in the public domain. NB having permission to use an image yourself doesn’t usually mean you have permission to pass that image on to a third party to be used, which means we won’t have permission to use it on the festival website.

Images must be between 100×100 and 6000×6000 pixels in size and no larger than 8 MB.

If we suspect you’ve submitted an image you don’t own, or you’ve the images you’ve uploaded are of insufficient quality, we’ll ask you to submit an alternative image before we can approve your application.

Open House Festival open days and events should enable people to access spaces that they normally wouldn't be able to, or help them to experience a space or place in a new way. In this section, please select the option that best describes your open day or event.

You don’t need to be an architectural expert to open up a building as part of the festival, but we encourage you to think about what it is that you want to share with visitors. Please briefly tell us what you consider the most important aspect(s) of your listing. It might relate to the architecture and design of the building; the history, social or cultural significance of the site; or the people who work or live in, or care for the space.

Please indicate here if you’re planning to: run an event that centres the stories or histories of groups that are frequently marginalised (e.g. Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners; LGBTQ+ Londoners; working-class Londoners), open a home that’s rented, open a building that’s under threat of demolition, or run an event that celebrates sustainable forms of urbanism and architecture.

If you’re leading a walking tour or running another kind of event, please provide details of what you’ve got planned, such as the kinds of buildings and histories that participants will encounter on the route of the walk, or the kinds of activities they can expect to be engaged in as part of the event.

We recognise that opening your home or another building is already a big commitment and that not every contributor has the resources to put on additional activities. But if you’re in a position to do something extra, this is your opportunity to tell us about it. In this section, please select the option that best describes your open day or event. If none apply, please leave it blank.

Please select any nearby tube or train stations, or useful bus routes. If there aren’t any tube or train stations near your location, you don’t need to select one. It’s better to leave the tube and train station boxes blank than to add a station that isn’t nearby.

Please use this box to give any extra details that you think visitors might find useful. For example, directions if you know your location can be difficult to find. If you’re running a walking tour where the end point is different from the start point, please include details here.

We understand that some locations will be limited in the facilities that they can provide and that is ok. The important thing here is to be accurate about the facilities that you are able to provide so that visitors can make informed decisions about where to go during the festival.

Please use this box to include any relevant information that cannot be captured in the checklist. For example, if you are opening a building with some spaces that have level access and others which do not, please provide details here. Or, for example, if you’ve specified in the checklist that there is accessible parking available, please provide details here.

Please use this box to provide additional information that might help prepare visitors. For example, if the environment is likely to be particularly stimulating - e.g. loud noises, bright lights, strong smells - please provide details here. Or, for example, if you’re running a walking tour and know that some seating will be available at specific points on the tour, please provide details here.

This year’s Open House Festival will run 12–20 September. You’re welcome to open or run your event at any time during the festival, including weekdays. If you’re planning weekend activities, we’re offering guidance on which weekend to choose, based on which borough you’re in.

Every festival listing has to include: one or more activities, a date, and start times and end times for each activity.

If, for example, you’re opening your home for a single day, that’s one activity. If you’re running the same walking tour on two different occasions, each one would be a separate activity.

Drop-in

This is the default type for Open House Festival activities. If you pick this option, you’re letting visitors know that they’re free to arrive at any point between the start and end times you’ve selected. We strongly recommend running drop-in activities, where possible, as you’re more likely to get a good number of visitors throughout the time you’re open. Ticketed events get booked up quickly by visitors who already know the festival well, so drop-in activities are the best way for us, and for you, to reach new audiences.

NB - drop-ins shouldn’t be used to mean ‘first-come-first-served’. If your activity has a definite maximum capacity, then the drop-in option won’t be suitable. Visitors shouldn’t expect to be turned away from a drop-in activity, although they might expect to have to queue when visiting a particularly popular building.

Ticketed

If you pick this option, visitors will need to book a free ticket for the time slot that you’ve specified. This option should be used for activities with definite start and end times and/or a maximum visitor capacity, such as walking tours or a guided tour of a building.

Please bear in mind that, as will all free activities, not everyone who books in advance will show up on the day. To mitigate this, we recommend adding up to 50% more ticketed places than you can technically accommodate.

Both drop-in and ticketed

You might find it makes sense to use a combination of drop-in and ticketed activities for your listing. For example, if you’re holding an open day where visitors are free to show themselves around the building but you’re also running a guided tour at a specific point during the day, you might choose to make the former a drop-in activity and the latter a ticketed one.