Hampton Court Palace Events

The palace runs a full annual calendar — open-air concerts in the Tudor courtyards, a food festival in the gardens, and a winter transformation of the whole building. Here is the shape of the year, with each event’s official booking route.

Hampton Court Palace Festival — June

Every June, Base Court becomes an open-air concert venue and major acts play beneath the Tudor brick. Tickets sell through the festival’s own box office, not through the palace day-ticket system — book on the festival’s official site once the line-up is announced, usually early in the year.

Hampton Court Palace Food Festival — August bank holiday

A bank-holiday weekend of food, drink and family activities across the gardens. Entry is ticketed through Historic Royal Palaces; palace admission arrangements vary by year, so read the event page when booking.

Winter Palace — late November to early January

From late November much of the palace transforms into the Winter Palace experience, with festive displays through the historic rooms and extended evening openings on select dates. Historic routes remain available for visitors who prefer the palace without the decorations. Standard and evening tickets sell through Historic Royal Palaces; December weekday visits are the quiet option.

Garden Open Days

On select dates through the year the gardens open free of charge — a generous way to see the Privy Garden, Great Vine and Fountain Garden without a palace ticket. Dates are published on the Historic Royal Palaces opening-times page.

Living history, jousting and school holidays

Costumed interpretation runs year-round and steps up in school holidays: Tudor cookery in the kitchens most weekends, and jousting or falconry programmes in the gardens in summer — travellers in our review pool mention timing their afternoon around the jousting. These are included in palace admission.

Booking around an event

Two things are worth knowing before you build a day around the calendar. First, an event ticket and a palace admission ticket are not always the same thing: concert and festival tickets admit you to the event, not necessarily to the historic apartments, so check what your ticket covers if you want both. Second, guided tours run on event days as normal, but meeting points can move when parts of the grounds are closed for setup — the operator will confirm on booking.

The quietest months at the palace are January and February, when the crowds thin and off-peak pricing applies. The busiest days are summer weekends and the festival evenings in June. If your priority is the rooms and the gardens rather than the programme, a weekday outside school holidays gives you the palace at its calmest.

What runs all year

Not everything is seasonal. The Tudor kitchens fire their hearths most weekends, costumed interpreters work the Great Hall and the state rooms daily, and family trails are available whenever the palace is open. These come with standard admission and need no separate booking — a good reason not to over-plan around headline events.

Plan the practical side on the visitor information page, and if you’re travelling in from town, the getting there guide covers trains, coaches and the river. Hampton Court Palace Tours keeps the whole comparison in one place.