Lord Mayor returns to the Thames as 6,500 people join the Show through the City
Bronek Masojada, the 698th Lord Mayor, begins his first public engagement on the Royal Shallop Jubilant on Saturday morning, before a 2.86 mile procession of 250 horses and more than 50 floats sets off from Mansion House at 11am.
The City's oldest procession starts on the water this year. On Saturday morning the new Lord Mayor of the City of London, Bronek Masojada, leaves Westminster at 8.30am aboard the ceremonial Royal Shallop Jubilant, accompanied by his wife and by the Sheriffs of the City of London, in a flotilla made up of Livery boats, and comes ashore at HMS President before taking his place in the Lord Mayor's Show. The City of London Corporation says the river journey recalls the route Lord Mayors once took to Westminster to swear loyalty to the Crown, and the toolkit for this year's Show notes that the flotilla is returning for the first time since 2017.
The Show itself is Alderman Masojada's first public engagement in office. He is the 698th Lord Mayor, and he took office at the Silent Ceremony on Friday 13 November. At 11am the procession sets off from Mansion House, the mayoral residence, and travels through the City to the Royal Courts of Justice before returning to Mansion House, finishing at 2.30pm. Admission is free.
The scale is set out by the organisers. Around 6,500 participants, 250 horses and more than 50 decorated floats will travel the 2.86 mile route, among them City charities and financial institutions, Livery Companies, schools and community groups, and performers, musicians and military bands. Organisers expect the pavements along the route to hold more than 350,000 people, and the Show will be broadcast live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from 10.45am, in the centenary year of the BBC's first live broadcast of the event, on radio in 1926.
Beginning my first public engagement as Lord Mayor on the Thames will be a very special moment.Bronek Masojada, Lord Mayor, in the City of London Corporation release for the 2026 Show
The Corporation describes the Show as dating back to 1215 and as the world's oldest civic procession. In office, the Lord Mayor acts as an ambassador abroad for Britain's financial and professional services industries. Masojada was elected Alderman for the Ward of Billingsgate in 2019 and served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2023/24. He retired as chief executive of Hiscox in 2021, having led the insurer from 1993, and is now Chair of SiriusPoint and of Saltus, a non-executive director of Brown and Brown, and Chair of the East End Community Foundation.
This year's line up mixes the ceremonial with the new. The Royal Navy provides the Guard of Honour and will parade the King's Colour on the King's 78th birthday. The international cast includes the US Navy Band, in the year the United States marks its 250th anniversary, bands from Germany and Switzerland, a folk band from Poland, and INALA, the dance group from South Africa. A giant bee, sculpted in Manchester out of knives that had been recovered, forms part of the procession's backing for the No Knives, Better Lives campaign, 450 RAF Air Cadets march to mark their 80th anniversary, and Henry Lee, the City Marshal, rides in the procession this year, having taken riding lessons specially for the occasion.
For spectators, the practical points are simple. The procession is free to watch from the pavement along the route, which runs from Mansion House to the Royal Courts of Justice via Cheapside and St Paul's Cathedral and returns via the Embankment and Queen Victoria Street. The Corporation encourages visitors to use public transport and to check travel information before setting out, because extensive road closures will be in place across the City, and City of London Police officers will be on duty across the day, before the procession, while it passes and after it ends.
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