VE Day 2025: What are the four-day celebrations to mark 80th anniversary?
Street parties, concerts and a military flypast are just some of the ways the country is set to mark the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day.
Victory in Europe Day – to give it its full name – marks the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945, when the Allies accepted the surrender of Nazi Germany.
Four days of celebrations have been organised by the government for this year’s anniversary, which will run from Monday 5 May to Thursday 8 May.
Planned events include a military procession and flypast in central London and 2,500 beacons being lit across the UK.
Britons have also been urged to gather together in streets, gardens, town halls, clubs and pubs, similar to how people marked the end of nearly six years of war 80 years ago.
Here is everything you need to know about the celebrations and how to get involved.
Monday 5 May
Military procession and flypast
VE Day celebrations will begin outside Parliament Square in central London at midday.
Here, an actor will recite extracts from the iconic Winston Churchill VE Day speech.
A young person will pass the Commonwealth War Graves Torch for Peace to a 100-year-old Second World War veteran who served in the Normandy campaign.
The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment and The King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery will then lead the procession from Parliament Square, down Whitehall.
Map showing the route of the VE Day procession in London
They will travel past the Cenotaph, which will be draped in Union Jack flags, continue up to Trafalgar Square, under Admiralty Arch and down the Mall towards the Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace.
They will be followed by a procession group featuring marching members of the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the British Army and the Royal Air Force. Cadets and other uniformed youth groups will also take part.
The King and Queen, along with other members of the royal family and the prime minister, will join Second World War veterans to watch the military procession.
People will then be invited to fill the Mall – before a flypast of the Red Arrows and 23 current and historic military aircraft takes place.
The flypast will include a Voyager transport aircraft, a P8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft, Typhoon and F-35 fighter jets and will culminate with the red, white, and blue smoke of the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows.
Historic Second World War-era aircraft from the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight will also take part.
Watch VE Day coverage live on Sky News from 10am, with Sarah-Jane Mee hosting a special programme from Canada Gate at Buckingham Palace. She will be joined by Royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills and Sky News Royal events commentator Alastair Bruce.
The flypast will involve old and new military aircraft. File pic: PA
Street parties
Various street parties, barbecues and community events will be held on the Bank Holiday Monday to mark VE Day.
After the procession and flypast, the King and Queen will host a tea party for veterans and members of the Second World War generation at Buckingham Palace.
HMS Belfast, the most significant surviving Second World War warship, will host an afternoon tea street party and an evening party in London, with talks from keynote speakers.
Elsewhere around the country, highlights on 5 May include an open-air music festival in Witton Park, Blackburn, complete with fairground rides, inflatables, stalls and food, a VE Day picnic in the Shropshire town of Caven Arms and a performance of wartime music by the Wrentham Brass Band in Norfolk.
In the South and South East of England, the Fort Amherst Heritage Trust in Chatham is hosting tours of the Napoleonic fort with music, food and drink, while Winston Churchill’s family home, Chartwell in Kent, will have family activities and live music.
In the Welsh village of Myddfai, nestled in the Brecon Beacons, there will be a street party, with attendees invited to bring food, dress in 1940s-style clothing and sing along to wartime songs.
Click here for a full list of local events
Tuesday 6 May
An installation of 30,000 ceramic poppies will return to the Tower of London on 6 May for the VE Day anniversary.
The ornaments – which will be viewed by the Queen when they go on display – were originally made in 2014 as part of the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red installation, which marked 100 years since Britain’s involvement in the First World War.
The art installation Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red in 2014. Pic: Reuters
The latest installation, overseen by designer Tom Piper, will feature tens of thousands of the original ceramic poppies on loan from the Imperial War Museum, as a way to “mark and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many during the Second World War”.
A small part of the poppy installation will be visible to the public for free, with the main installation located inside the grounds of the Tower. It will remain in place until 11 November to mark Armistice Day.
Historic landmarks across the UK will also be lit up on the evening of the 6 May, which you can watch on Sky News with live helicopter shots capturing the scenes.
30,000 of the original ceramic poppies will be placed at the Tower of London. Pic: Reuters
Wednesday 7 May
In the evening of 7 May, an anniversary concert will take place in Westminster Hall at the Palace of Westminster.
It will mark 80 years since a newsflash told the nation that the next day would be known as Victory Day.
The Parliament Choir will perform pieces of classic music from across Europe and America, with the addition of special guests.
Westminster Hall. Pic: iStock
Thursday 8 May
Events planned to mark VE Day itself will kick off with a service in Westminster Abbey, with 1,800 people invited to attend including the King and Queen, veterans, politicians and charities.
In the afternoon, the Royal British Legion, a UK-based charity that supports veterans, will host a private tea party for Second World War veterans and their families.
It will take place at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire and aims to include veterans who live in the North of England and cannot travel to events in London.
The tea party is expected to attract a large crowd, if not the largest group of Second World War veterans at a VE Day event, and you can watch live coverage of it on Sky News.
In County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, there will be a parade of 80 pipers and drummers along Church Street in Enniskillen.
Pubs will also be allowed to stay open for an extra two hours on 8 May, meaning people will be able to raise a glass until 1am to mark the end of the four-day celebration.
Concerts and film premiere
The government’s VE Day programme of events will conclude with a concert at Horse Guards Parade between 8pm and 10pm on 8 May.
The concert will feature “stars of the stage and screen” as well as performances from military musicians, readings and poignant moments that will tell the story of VE Day and the nation’s reaction to the end of the Second World War.
More than 12,500 people are expected to attend the event, including the King and Queen, as well as 2,500 young people made up of Duke of Edinburgh ambassadors, Commonwealth scholars and representatives from youth groups.
A concert at Horse Guards Parade will tell the story of how the nation reacted to the end of the Second World War
Meanwhile, from 7.30pm at the Royal Albert Hall, the Armed Forces charity SSAFA will host VE Day 80: The Party.
This will feature The RAF Squadronaires, part of the central band of the Royal Air Force, who will perform 1940s songs, and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, who will perform the nation’s best-loved classical anthems.
A new short film by the National Theatre will also be released on 8 May.
The Next Morning, written by stage and screenwriter James Graham, will feature award-winning actors Julian Glover, Sian Phillips, and Joseph Mydell and will take viewers through a series of stories exploring intergenerational perspectives on the end of the war.
Bringing the day to an end, 2,500 beacons will be lit across the UK. The fires will be ignited around 9pm, including on the River Thames at London’s Tower Bridge, in Folkstone, Kent, Bridport in Dorset, Fairhaven Lake and Gardens in Lancashire and Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
Friday 9 – Sunday 11 May
Community events around the country will continue into the weekend, although these have not been officially organised by the government.
On the Friday night, there will be a 1940s style dance in Wouldham, Rochester, with a hog roast, a 1940s wartime band and authentic Second World War jeep.
Primary school children at a buffet brunch to launch VE Day 80 in February. Pic: PA
On 10 May in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, there will be a community concert by the band, bugles, pipes and drums of The Royal Irish Regiment at St Macartin’s Cathedral.
In Glasgow on 10 May, there will be a church service at the Veterans Memorial Garden on Baldwin Avenue, followed by a veterans parade. This will finish at the Lincoln Inn where there will be a buffet, music and raffle.
In the Yorkshire village of Catton, there will be a vintage-themed day featuring Second World War memorabilia and vehicles. A similar event is also set to take place in Keelby village hall, in Lincolnshire.
A brother and sister have been jailed for the murder of a drug dealer in a “ferocious” knife attack.
Isaiah Marsh, 21, and his 23-year-old sibling Mya Marsh were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison for killing Minister Enfrence, 21, in a row over a £200 cannabis debt.
Bank worker Mya was trying to buy drugs from Mr Enfrence in Kings Norton, Birmingham, when she met him armed with a kitchen knife at about 10am on 5 November, the city’s crown court heard.
Judge Simon Drew KC said that Mya was the aggressor in an initial confrontation with Mr Enfrence over the debt as he sentenced the siblings on Thursday.
Mya called her brother Isaiah to the scene, who “launched a ferocious attack on Minister as he lay defenceless on his back on the floor” and had intended to kill, the judge said.
Mr Enfrence suffered at least 12 stab wounds to his body, arms, hands and head in the “unprovoked” attack.
He did not die instantly and managed to escape before collapsing nearby.
Judge Drew said footage of the attack, which was caught on CCTV, was “truly sickening” to watch as Mr Enfrence died a “traumatic and painful death”.
Minister Enfrence was killed on 5 November. Pic: West Midlands Police
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The footage shows Mya passing a knife to her brother during the stabbing.
The judge told them: “This was an attack by two people on one. That attack was unprovoked. Members of the public, including a child in a pushchair, passed very close by while the attack was taking place.”
After the killing, Mya went to work “as if nothing had happened” after taking the morning off work, citing mental health problems, the court was told.
Isaiah later handed himself in to the police.
A jury unanimously convicted the siblings of murder on Monday following a three-week trial.
Both had denied murder and alternative charges of manslaughter.
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Isaiah claimed he acted in self-defence, while Mya claimed she did not believe her brother would use the knife to stab Mr Enfrence.
Rachel Brand KC, representing Mya, said the attack was “utterly out of character” for her client and that Mya had shouted “stop it” and “break it up” during her brother and Mr Enfrence’s struggle.
Isaiah, meanwhile, would find it “almost impossible to reconcile what he saw on the CCTV with who he is”, his barrister Michael Ivers KC told the court.
“He has told everyone who will listen when they have spoken to him that he is full of remorse about what happened,” Mr Ivers said.
Police investigating the torture and killing of a pair of kittens in west London have published CCTV pictures of two teenagers they want to speak to.
Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing
The Metropolitan Police were tipped off on 3 May that two teenagers had allegedly dismembered the animals at Ickenham Road, Ruislip.
No arrests have been made.
Officers released footage of a boy and a girl on Thursday and asked people to help identify them.
The boy is described by the Met as 5ft 6in (168cm) tall, with short dark hair. He was wearing a dark jacket with long sleeves, with blue jeans.
Police sergeant Babs Rock said the boy “was also seen carrying a black duffel bag, which sadly is thought to have contained the kittens”.
The two youths. Pic: Metropolitan Police/PA
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Sergeant Rock said the young girl was the same height as the boy, with long red hair.
“She was wearing a white top with black shorts. She was also carrying a purple jumper, which she later puts on to wear,” she said.
“If you know these two individuals then please come forward to us, we would like to speak with them as soon as possible.”
In the video, the pair are seen walking down a street and then later running back the way they came.
Sergeant Rock described it as “an incredibly distressing incident which I know has caused concern in the local community”.
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