Events: What’s on and dates for your diary
Events: What’s on and dates for your diary
From intimate gatherings to bustling festivals, we celebrate the best in contemporary fiction at these UK events and pop-ups featuring our prizes’ authors and books
The Booker Prize 2026 shortlist readings
The prize’s annual shortlist readings, which feature the six authors reading from and discussing their books, are returning for the 2026 prize season and will take place on Sunday, 8 November in the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, as part of its 75th anniversary programme. Sara Collins, novelist, literary critic, screenwriter, broadcaster and former Booker Prize judge, will chair the event.
Where: Southbank Centre, London
When: 7.30pm GMT on Sunday, 8 November 2026
Tickets: On sale via southbankcentre.co.uk
The event will also be available to watch via livestream on the Southbank Centre’s website. The livestream link will be made available on southbankcentre.co.uk on Thursday, 29 October.
Booker Prize 2025 Shortlist Readings event at Southbank Centre, London
© Dave Parry for Booker Prize Foundation
The Booker Prize 2026 ceremony & livestream
The winner of the Booker Prize 2026 will be announced on Monday, 9 November at a private ceremony at Old Billingsgate, London. The winner announcement will be livestreamed and available to watch on the Booker Prizes YouTube channel between 9.30-10pm GMT.
This year, five independent bookshops across the UK and Ireland will be hosting official Booker Prize ceremony watch parties in their stores:
- London Review Bookshop, 7.30-10.30pm, £7, tickets available here.
- The Heath Bookshop, Birmingham, 8-10.30pm, £10, tickets available here.
- Bookmarked, Bristol, 8-10.30pm, £5, tickets available here.
- The Book Brewery, Cumbria, 7.30-10.30pm, free.
- Books Upstairs, Dublin, 7.30-10.15pm, 8€, tickets will be available via Books Upstairs Eventbrite.
If you’d like to host your own Booker Prize watch party, at home with friends, or in a local community space, head to our YouTube channel where you’ll find a Booker Prize watch party playlist to watch before tuning into the livestream on the night.
© Neo Gilder for Booker Prize Foundation
Meet the 2026 Booker Prize Winner
New Writing North and Tyneside Cinema are delighted to invite the newly crowned winner of the Booker Prize 2026 to an exclusive event in Newcastle for their first public appearance following their win earlier in the week.
Last November, David Szalay, the winner of the Booker Prize 2025, was welcomed to Tyneside Cinema to talk about his novel Flesh.
This year’s event will be chaired by Sara Collins who was a Booker Prize judge in 2024. She is the author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, which won the Costa First Novel Award in 2019. She is also a literary critic, screenwriter, broadcaster and podcaster.
Where: Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle upon Tyne
When: 6:00pm GMT on Thursday, 12 November 2026
Tickets: On sale here.
David Szalay, winner of the Booker Prize 2025, at the ceremony in London
© David Parry for the Booker Prize Foundation