ChessFest 2024

A Free Chess Festival in Trafalgar Square

ChessFest returned to Trafalgar Square, London on Sunday 7th July 2024, bigger and better than ever before! A record 23,300 people visited the festival and enjoyed a wide range of fun, family-friendly, and free chess activities. 

Even a thunderstorm couldn’t dampen our visitors’ enthusiasm for chess. Our volunteers quickly stepped in with their squeegee mops and their window wipers and the games resumed as the clouds blew away. 

Many of the UK’s top chess players joined us for the day, including England’s top player, Grandmaster Nikita Vitiugov, British Champions, Grandmasters Gawain Jones, Matthew Sadler, Stuart Conquest, and Chris Ward, as well as British Women's’ Champions, International Master Harriet Hunt and FIDE Master Akshaya Kalaiyalahan. In addition, three of the UK’s new generation of chess stars, Supratit Banerjee, Ethan Pang, and Bodhana Sivanandan, took on members of the public in simultaneous displays and in our Challenge the Chess Master tent.

Meanwhile, on our living chess board, 32 actors dressed as characters from Alice Through the Looking Glass recreated famous games of chess with commentary from MC Owen and GM Chris Ward. In the battle between the eight flamingoes of the white pieces and the eight hedgehogs of the red pieces, honours were even at one win a team!