Millions of people are gearing up to celebrate Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee over a blockbuster four-day bank holiday weekend.
Celebrations begin on Thursday with the Queen’s Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) taking place at Horseguards Parade in London. It will be followed by a Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s on Friday, royal attendance at the Derby, Epsom on Saturday and then a Party at the Palace on Saturday night with some of the biggest names in music performing.
The weekend will be rounded off with the Platinum Jubilee Pageant on Sunday on The Mall which will culminate in 150 national treasures, including Ed Sheeran, paying tribute to Her Majesty The Queen.
Big screens broadcasting the events will be placed in The Mall in London, Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens and in Cardiff’s Bute Park.
At home, people can watch the events on the BBC, Sky and ITV and, across the country, millions will sit down to a Big Jubilee Lunch over the weekend with more than 200,000 local events – including screenings, street parties and lunches – planned.
Across the Commonwealth and the rest of the world, more than 600 Big Jubilee Lunches are planned in more than 80 countries – from Greenland to New Zealand.
Scores of TV channels and reporters from around the world have flocked to London to cover the historic celebrations.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said: For seventy years The Queen has been the ultimate symbol of what it means to be British. Her steadfast leadership and unwavering service through good and bad has been an inspiration to so many.
With four days of celebrations and millions around the world taking part, this weekend will be a fitting tribute and celebration of her service and dedication to the people of the UK and the Commonwealth.
A four-day extravaganza of events
The Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend in Central London begins on Thursday with the traditional Queen’s Birthday Parade (Trooping the Colour) which will see more than 1,500 soldiers and musicians, around 240 horses and the Irish Guards mascot, Turlough Mor the Irish Wolfhound, take to Horse Guards Parade.
Around 7,000 ticketed members of the public will watch the ceremony from the stands on Horse Guards Parade as they return for the first time since the pandemic. Another 7,000 members of the Armed Forces Community invited by the Royal British Legion will watch Trooping the Colour from the seating around the Queen Victoria Memorial. The parade will finish with the traditional RAF flypast and balcony moment. Beacons will be lit throughout the UK and the Commonwealth in the evening.
On Friday, a Service of Thanksgiving for The Queen’s 70-year reign will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral. The service will include Bible readings, anthems, prayers and congregational hymns to express thanks for Her Majesty’s reign, faith and service. The service will include a new Anthem by Judith Weir, Master of The Queen’s Music, which sets to music words from the third chapter of the Book of Proverbs.
On Saturday, global music stars including Queen and Adam Lambert, Alicia Keys, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Andrea Bocelli, Ella Eyre, Craig David and Duran Duran will perform some of their biggest hits. The show, which will take place on a 360-degree stage around the Queen Victoria Memorial, will be closed by the legendary Diana Ross. More than 22,000 people will attend, including more than 7,500 key workers, members of the Armed Forces, volunteers and charities.
The Jubilee weekend comes to a close on Sunday with the Platinum Jubilee Pageant. With thousands of performers from across Britain and the Commonwealth, the Pageant will feature a giant dragon puppet the size of a double decker bus, corgis, acrobats, dancers and circus acts. The grand finale will feature 150 ‘national treasures’ including Ed Sheeran who, along with members of the viewing public invited to become part of the performance, will gather and pay tribute to The Queen.
In addition to the events taking place in London, organised by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in partnership with Buckingham Palace, the Government has also extended licensing hours so people can celebrate the Jubilee in pubs and bars across England and Wales.
To mark the occasion eight UK towns were granted city status. These are Bangor in Northern Ireland, Colchester, Doncaster and Milton Keynes in England, Douglas in the Isle of Man, Dunfermline in Scotland, Stanley in the Falkland Islands and Wrexham in Wales.
The competition for city status has taken place in each of the last three Jubilee years. Previous winners include Chelmsford in England, Lisburn in Northern Ireland and Perth in Scotland. Southampton was also granted lord mayoralty status which entitles the mayor to be known as the lord mayor.
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