A carnival returns – bigger, louder and more playful
'Vibrant, fun and free...'
What’s in store for St Denys Carnival 2026 when it returns on May 23?
Co-organiser Lori Foster* (above left) popped in to the bitternepark.info studio to chat about this year’s event with Deb Wilkes (above right).
It’s the second year of the revived St Denys Carnival - a local tradition brought back after decades, now growing into something that blends the old spirit of community carnivals with a more DIY, imaginative feel.
“Vibrant, fun and free,” is how Lori sums up last year’s event.
You can see the 2025 procession gearing up to go in the following video clip.
This year, the parade returns with a new theme - Pirates of the Itchen - and an open an invitation for people to get involved, whether that’s dressing up, building a float, or simply stepping outside to watch it pass by.
Listen to our ten-minute audio interview below to find out what else is happening on the day - from music and activities to the many ways people can take part.
Here’s a short video clip of the chat. Scroll down to play the complete audio below.
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Thank you.
* Lori Foster is a candidate in the May 2026 local elections. For a full list of candidates in all city wards, see this PDF on the council’s website
Interview
Use the player below to hear the interview. A transcription may follow later!
Transcription
A lightly edited AI-generated transcription follows. It’s not perfect and may well contain errors and some wrong attribution, but we feel it gives a reasonable sense of the chat. Let us know if you find it useful!
[Deb Wilkes]
Well, I’m here again in the bittenepark.info studio and today I’m with Lori Foster, a well-known face in St Denys. Good morning.
[Lori Foster]
Good morning. Hi, how are you?
[Deb]
I’m alright Lori. And what I wanted to talk to you about today is the big St Denys Carnival which is coming up on May the 23rd.
[Lori]
It is, absolutely. We are so excited. It’s our second one back from the revival and we’re raring to go.
[Deb]
And when you say revival, when was the one before last year?
[Lori]
Well, in the 90s. So, yeah, you know, I would like to say I wasn’t born but I was already raving at that point!
[Deb]
And actually everybody loves a carnival. I remember Southampton carnivals very fondly when I first moved down here. So, one thing, can you give me three words to describe last year’s carnival from your point of view?
[Lori]
Vibrant, fun and free.
[Deb]
Super. Okay. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what’s going to happen on the day?
[Lori]
Absolutely. So, we are going to have a parade which is going to begin at St Denys Community Centre and the theme this year is Pirates of the Itchen. So, we’re encouraging people to come along, dress up as pirates, really use their imagination and head on down and join us for the parade.
We are lengthening the route this year so it’s going to take in even more of St Denys than before including St Denys Church which is one of our new venues.
[Deb]
And is there something else happening at St Denys Church?.
[Lori]
Absolutely. So, there’s an arts festival that runs as part of the carnival. It begins on Friday the 22nd and runs all the way through to the following Friday. So, we’ve got two exhibitions there.
One is a photography exhibition and the other one is a local artist exhibition. The theme being ‘River’.
[Deb]
Lovely. And one of the things about a carnival - the old-fashioned carnivals [were] very much big lorries, weren’t they? When you could get through the streets they were big lorries.
And we can’t do that in St Denys because you can’t get through the streets. So, what do people, say last year, what would people have put floats on? What did some of them look like?
Because there might be people wanting to enter it but they’re not quite sure what to do, how to go about it.
[Lori]
Absolutely. So, one of the things when we brought the carnival back was that we wanted to make it more sustainable. And as you said, there’s not space in St Denys streets and also it’s not great having lorries chugging around with big fumes.
So, we decided we’d set people up and say, use your imagination, what can you do? And we had people come on bikes that they decorated. We had people pulling hand carts.
St Denys Boat Club even came with a canoe on wheels.
[Deb]
Yes, I remember that, yeah.
[Lori]
So, people would really reach out. And then some people not sat so far away from me brought in gigantic raven.
[Deb]
My goodness, who would have thought of that?
[Lori]
I have no idea but they’re certainly crazy.
[Deb]
And one thing I remember is lots of little children dressed up as little bees. And that was really nice and it reminded me of the simplicity of a costume that you can have. So, it doesn’t have to be sort of big and extravagant or expensive, does it?
[Lori]
Absolutely not. We encourage people to use cereal boxes, recycle their plastic bottles to make costumes, anything they can do. Paint or t-shirts, it does not have to be expensive.
It just has to be fun.
[Deb]
And things like face paint.
[Lori]
Absolutely.
[Deb]
Nice and easy, isn’t it?
[Lori]
Yeah, nice, easy things to take part in. With our little bees, we ordered little masks and they were ridiculously cheap. And some others made out of cereal boxes that they cut eyes out of and stuck little antennae to.
Things that don’t take a lot of time but are really impactful. I mean, with the pirate theme, all you need is an eye patch, really.
[Deb]
And actually, the more the merrier. If you’ve got lots of people doing something, it looks great, doesn’t it?
[Lori]
Absolutely. It’s just people getting together, really. The more the better. It’s fun seeing hordes of people just enjoy themselves.
We have music around as well, so we’ve got some busk stops, one of them being just by the Testament of the New Church of God. So we’re having DJ Nite-Rider coming back for that.
[Deb]
I remember the DJ last year, brilliant.
[Lori]
So it’s just full of dancing. Full of dancing, full of joy, just being together.
[Deb]
And actually, there’s music all day, isn’t there? I’m going to see the Black Kat Boppers tonight at the Brook.
And they are one of the bands playing at the community centre.
[Lori]
They are. We have a huge variety of bands. Not just the ones that you’ll find at the larger venues in Southampton, but really local ones as well.
Last year, one of the favourites was the Southampton Uke Jam.
[Deb]
They’re always a favourite.
[Lori]
They’re amazing. Everybody was singing along, dancing away.
It was brilliant. And another thing that we had was some young and upcoming bands. So Benana Studio brought forward some of our very best young talent to sing and gave them a chance to experience what it’s like to perform in front of big crowds.
[Deb]
And they looked like they so enjoyed it. And actually, so did the crowd. There were some really good bands that I remember being there.
[Lori]
There were. It just takes you back to being a teenager, really, doesn’t it? It’s fabulous.
[Deb]
And there’s also all three St Denys pubs. For the rest of the day, there’s music, isn’t there?
[Lori]
Absolutely. So we finish at three o’clock.
And then from three o’clock our amazing spaces around St Denys take over. So we’ve got live music in The Junction, live music in The South Western. And there’s an open mic going on at The Dolphin over the bridge.
And then the St Denys Social Club are also providing a whole evening’s worth of entertainment. And it’s all free.
[Deb]
Wow. This is getting bigger and bigger, isn’t it?
[Lori]
It is. You could literally venue hop.
[Deb]
And so drummers, we’ve got drummers?
[Lori]
Have we got drummers? Well, last year we had the amazing drumming band and samba band. This year we’ve got something slightly different. And I’m going to wait… You’ll have to come along to discover what it is.
[Deb]
Super. And one of the other things that there was quite a lot happening in the community centre and in the outside space of the community centre. Can you just say a little bit more about what people can expect?
[Lori]
So this year, again, is bigger than ever. As I said, we’ve got the photography and the art exhibition running in the church all day. In the community centre, we’ve got a number of local stall holders that are coming along with all kinds of treats.
The incredible Jane will be back with our tasty samosas. So make sure you’re ready to eat something. We’ve got the cake off competition where people can enter their own cakes and bring them along.
The winner gets a prize. We’ve got some fantastic judges. But the best bit about that is that you can buy the cake and taste them.
So we’ve got a community cafe that’s running on the day as well.
[Deb]
And the judging is that that’s on what it looks like and what it tastes like.
[Lori]
Absolutely. We have a new category...
[Deb]
Can I be a judge?
[Lori]
Absolutely. Make sure you bring your fork with you!
So we’ve got a new category this year. Under 16s. Because last year we had some fantastic young bakers. And we think it’s really important to showcase those new people. So as I said, lots of stalls.
We’ve also got a workshop this year. The John Hansard Gallery are running a workshop so people can take part and do something arty. On the outside in the multi-use games area, again, we’ve got more food vendors. We’ve got more trade stalls.
And then, as if that wasn’t enough, at the New Testament Church of God, they’ve got crafts and bric-a-brac stalls. And their famous Caribbean barbecue will be back along with their DJs. And then the Social Club are going to be running an indoor car boot sale.
[Deb]
So there’s an awful lot going on. This is obviously a very busy time for you. And I know that there’s not that many organisers.
Do you need any help?
[Lori]
We would absolutely welcome people to come down and help us. The biggest thing we need on the day is marshals to make sure that we’re all safe running through the streets of St Denys. We have a traffic management team who are amazing.
But it’s always good to have feet on the street. So if anybody’s interested, you can contact us via the website which is stdenyscarnival.uk and there’s a form to fill in to join in and take part. We also need more people to build floats and come along.
[Deb]
And actually, if you’re doing a float, you would rather somebody registered it, is that right?
[Lori]
Absolutely. So you can register for that on the website. If you don’t feel like you want to register and just want to turn up, that’s fine too.
[Deb]
And I’ve registered ours, but where it says what are you going to do and how many people, I just put, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. It was like, I’m registering, but we’re not quite sure what we’re doing yet.
[Lori]
I can’t wait to see what you do. We’re trying to incorporate the raven’s head into something pirate-y. So you’ll have to keep an eye out for him.
[Deb]
So you’ve still got the raven [float from last year]?
[Lori]
We do. He lives in our garage looking down at us every time we open the door.
[Deb]
OK, and there was the big papier-mâché octopus last year, which was in somebody’s shed. So I don’t know if that will come out again.
[Lori]
I’m sure the octopus will float along Priory Road at some point.
[Deb]
So that’s volunteers for marshalling, people just coming out on the day, people looking at the route. And there’s, in the Itch and Stink, the newsletter, there’s a route in the middle, isn’t there?
[Lori
There is.
[Deb]
People can just sort of hang out of their windows or stand in the street and cheer people on.
[Lori]
Absolutely. And we would really encourage people along the route to decorate their gardens, their houses, put bunting up. Really get involved and be part of it. It’s so much fun.
[Deb]
Actually, just that act of putting things out in your garden makes you feel part of it, doesn’t it?
[Lori]
It does. And that’s the whole point of the carnival. We really want to bring everybody together in the area and just make it feel like a great, big, fun family. Because we all know that St Denys is special.
[Deb]
We do. So, shall we just repeat when it is, what time it is and the website for people to look it up on?
[Lori]
Absolutely. So, St Denys Carnival, Saturday the 23rd of May, starts at 11 o’clock, finishes at 3 and then we’ve got music till late in the amazing venues around Southampton.
The exhibition and the photo gallery starts the 22nd of May and finishes the following Friday the 28th.
[Deb]
Okay, so lots happening. Thank you very much. And I just have to finish on: why can’t pirates say the alphabet?
[Lori]
Oh, I don’t know. Why can’t pirates say the alphabet?
[Deb]
It’s because they get stuck at sea.
[Lori]
Ohhh. Arrrr!
[Deb]
Arrrr. There was a lot of arr jokes. Thanks ever so much, Lori.
And I’ll see you on the 23rd.
[Lori]
See you on the 23rd.