Frieze Week London

Frieze week is the one stretch of the year when London behaves like a fair city. For five days, October 14 to 18, two tents stand at opposite ends of The Regent’s Park: Frieze London for the new, Frieze Masters for everything made before it. Between them, by the organizer’s count, are almost 300 galleries from 48 countries and regions. Around them, from Monday, October 12, the city supplies eight more fairs, three auction houses and a museum season timed to the same visitors.

The dates need care. Wednesday, October 14 is by invitation. The public gets in from 1 pm on Thursday, and on that day alone the fairs keep different hours: Frieze London shuts at 5 pm, Frieze Masters at 7 pm, according to Frieze’s visitor information. Frieze London has more than 170 galleries from 42 countries. Frieze Masters has nearly 140.

Who owns it now

The owner is newer than the tents. Ari Emanuel, the former chief executive of Endeavor, agreed in May 2025 to buy Frieze from his old company for a price reported at about $200 million, as The Art Newspaper reported. The deal closed on October 8, 2025, a week before last year’s fairs opened, inside a holding company called MARI. Its other assets are tennis tournaments, the Miami Open and the Madrid Open among them, and a majority stake in Barrett-Jackson, according to TheWrap. Emanuel’s launch statement held that “Live events and experiences have never been more powerful”, as quoted in The Art Newspaper. A fair founded in 2003 by the founders of frieze magazine now shares a parent with a tennis tournament in Madrid.

What is different this year

Both fairs have grown. Artnet News counted Frieze London at 172 galleries, up from 166 in 2025, and Frieze Masters at 140, up from 120, while noting who stayed away: Almine Rech, Kurimanzutto and Sean Kelly from the contemporary tent, Pace from Masters, by its count. The city around the tents has gone the other way. Stephen Friedman Gallery entered administration in February after about 30 years, Artsy reported. Beers closed in August and Sid Motion closes this month, according to Artnet News. A bigger fair in a thinner gallery district is the fact of the week.

Inside, Frieze London adds a curated section, The Code Universe, chosen by Carol Yinghua Lu, director of the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing. Frieze Masters adds Queering Modernism, a thread conceived by Anke Kempkes, and hands Spotlight, its largest to date, to Devika Singh and Sofia Gotti of the Courtauld. The Artist Award, made with Google Arts & Culture for the first time, goes to Theo Triantafyllidis for Feral Metaverse (Spider), a sculpture visitors climb to enter a multiplayer game. Gray Wielebinski’s commission, Production, is installed in the lavatories. Outside the park there are two new fairs, Paraíso and Fair Play, and in November the same owner opens the first Frieze Abu Dhabi.

This page holds the dates, the prices and the calendar. Nine more sections carry the detail, three lists print the names, and My Biennale carries the city.

The Lists

Three pages print what the My Biennale directory held on October 6, 2026. Directory counts are running lists and can differ from an organizer’s announced totals.

Tickets are day-specific and sold online only. Early-bird prices have sold out, so the figures below are full price, as listed on Frieze’s ticket page on October 5, 2026. Booking fees are extra. Frieze calls Thursday “First Preview” and Friday “Preview”; both are sold to the public.

• Thursday is the trap. Frieze London closes at 5 pm, two hours before Frieze Masters.
• No re-entry on general admission tickets. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing.
• Combined tickets must be used in the order of fairs printed on them.
• Students: £32 for both fairs, bought online in advance, with a valid student ID at the door.
• Children: under-2s need no ticket. Ages 2 to 17 pay £10. There is no free ticket for older children.
• Carers: companion tickets are free. No senior concession was found on Frieze’s pages.
• Members: an Individual In Person membership, £125, includes one entry to both fairs.

Frieze describes the dearer Friday and weekend ticket as entry before 3 pm and does not state the entry time of the cheaper one. Check the booking screen.

Some of the week is already running. Frieze Sculpture has been in the park since September 16. Christie’s and Phillips opened their viewings on October 8, Sotheby’s on October 9.

The satellites. Eight fairs share the week. 1-54, for contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, holds its 14th London edition at Somerset House, October 15 to 18, at £32 standard. PAD London brings design to Berkeley Square from October 13. Minor Attractions has moved to The Newman, a Fitzrovia hotel, with more than 75 galleries and no charge at the door. Two fairs are new: Paraíso, for Latin American art, at Ambika P3, and Fair Play at One Marylebone, with 70 independent artists. London Invitational takes a floor of The Chancery Rosewood on Grosvenor Square. Affordable Art Fair is in Battersea Park. Focus Art Fair Unconfirmed, at the Saatchi Gallery, rests on a single listing, in Artlyst’s guide. The Other Art Fair ran the week before and is over.

The auctions. The salerooms sell while the buyers are in town. Christie’s goes first on Wednesday with Mondrian’s Composition III of 1920, at auction for the first time and estimated at £20 million to £30 million, as Artlyst reported. Sotheby’s runs five sales from Wednesday to Friday at 34–35 New Bond Street, among them a 37-lot Contemporary Evening Auction and all 20 of Hockney’s Normandy flower paintings made on an iPad. Phillips sells on Thursday evening and Saturday afternoon at 30 Berkeley Square, led by Gerhard Richter’s Mathis at £6 million to £8 million. No Frieze week sale at Bonhams was found.

The two tents share a park and not an address. Frieze London is on the south side, entrance off Park Square West, NW1 4LL. Frieze Masters is at Gloucester Green in the northeast corner, near London Zoo, NW1 4HA. What follows is from Frieze’s visitor pages.

By Tube and on foot

• Frieze London: Regent’s Park station is less than five minutes’ walk. Baker Street and Great Portland Street are also close.
• Frieze Masters: Camden Town and Mornington Crescent are each about ten minutes’ walk.
• Between the tents: about 15 minutes on foot through the park, or a free shuttle bus that leaves from outside each entrance roughly every 15 minutes. Its hours of operation were not found on Frieze’s pages.

Fares

Pay by contactless card or phone and the fare caps itself. A Zone 1 Tube single costs £3.10 at peak times and £3.00 off-peak, and a day of pay-as-you-go travel in Zones 1–2 is capped at £8.90. A bus is £1.75, with a daily bus cap of £5.25, by the Mayor of London’s fares decision of March 2026.

Strikes and closures

No Tube strike had been announced for the week as of October 5, by the unofficial tracker Strike Calendar. The same site lists an RMT action Unconfirmed at a company it names as Gate Solutions on Friday, October 16. It is not an Underground strike, National Rail lists no national action for October, and its effect on London travel is not established. For weekend engineering works, check TfL’s planned closures.

Weather and light

October in London averages highs of 59 to 61°F (15 to 16°C) and lows of 46 to 52°F (8 to 11°C), with rain on 10 or 11 days of the month, by the Met Office figures on Wikipedia’s climate tables. Sunset is at about 6:07 pm on Thursday and 6:01 pm on Sunday, by one almanac. On Friday and Saturday the fairs close after dark, and the way out is across a park. The month’s averages and the state of the ground are on Park & Rain.

What to wear and carry

• Shoes for walking. The path between the tents takes about 15 minutes each way.
• A layer and a rain shell. The fairs are under cover; the walk between them is not.
• A small bag. Nothing larger than 16 by 8 by 16 inches is admitted, and cloakroom space is, in Frieze’s words, extremely limited.
• No picnic. Food, drink and glass are prohibited. There are water refill points inside.
• The ticket on a phone, and a student ID where the ticket requires one.

The full packing list, the airports, where to stay and where to eat are on Park & Rain. The last trains and the way home after dark are on Nights.

Both entrances have ramps, and both fairs have wheelchairs to borrow, accessible toilets and benches. See Frieze’s accessibility page.

Plan it on My Biennale

The three-day London journey for October strings the week into one itinerary. Start a trip to save fairs and museums to a plan, keep tickets in the Wallet, and open the London art map to see what is near what.