The Half Moon will be back for Boat Race Day – free entry, live music all night

After nearly eight weeks of building work, the Half Moon has said it set to reopen on Saturday 4 April, Boat Race Day, with free entry all day, live music from the afternoon, and DJs until midnight at 93 Lower Richmond Road.

While the doors have been shut, the venue has been nominated for a Music Week Award. The Half Moon is on the shortlist for the 2026 Grassroots Venue: Spirit of the Scene award, supported by the Music Venue Trust, the grassroots music industry’s leading advocacy organisation. Public voting is open now and closes at 5pm on 10 March.

The timing is no accident. The pub closed on 5 January for a full refurbishment, and it has picked the one day of the year when Putney is at its most alive to come back. The Oxford and Cambridge crews start their race just outside the door from around 2.20pm, and this year the Half Moon will be showing both races on its big screens.

The venue returns with a new upstairs bar and a brand-new menu. And it has not come back quietly.

The headline act for the reopening is Laurie Wright, a London rock and roll singer-songwriter who has spent the past two years selling out rooms in an almost comically straight line upward: the Underworld Camden in 2023, the 800-capacity Scala in King’s Cross in 2024, the Electric Ballroom Camden last December. He has the O2 Forum Kentish Town booked for October and it is already more than half-sold. Liam Gallagher, Rod Stewart and Peter Doherty have all spoken warmly about him.

The Half Moon, which has put live music on its stage every night since 1963, is booking him on the way up, the same instinct that once brought the Rolling Stones, U2 and Kate Bush through its doors before anyone knew their names.

Earlier in the day, the Maida Vales play from 3.45pm and Sergio Giorginis from 5.45pm. Wright takes the stage at 8pm. More acts are still to be announced.

Entry is free throughout. No bookings are being taken. The pub is keeping the dance floor open, so it is walk-in only, all day. The 18+ rule applies from 8pm.

Full event details are on the Half Moon’s organiser page.