East London just got its next summer anthem: Lorde is officially headlining All Points East 2026, marking a huge return to the capital for one of pop’s most consistently unpredictable stars. The New Zealand singer, adored worldwide for her avant-garde aesthetic and a sound that refuses to sit in any tidy genre box, will take over Victoria Park on 22 August 2026, leading what the festival is calling its most stacked female-fronted bill yet.
The announcement lands midway through the UK leg of Lorde’s Ultrasound World Tour, which kicked off in Manchester at the weekend and hits the O2 on Sunday and Monday night. It follows a chaotic blip in Luxembourg earlier this month, when the 29-year-old was forced to cancel after what she described as a “ruthless” bout of food poisoning. Hardly the ideal warm-up for a world tour, but fans haven’t exactly cooled off; her London dates sold out in minutes.
Joining her at All Points East is an all-killer, no-filler line-up: Mercury Prize nominee PinkPantheress, Swedish pop powerhouse Zara Larsson, rising US star Audrey Hobert, alt-pop vocalist Oklou, London’s own Rose Gray, plus 2hollis, Esha Tewari, ML Buch and Fabiana Palladino, with many more names to drop between now and summer.
Lorde’s headline slot feels like a full-circle moment. She’s fresh off the release of Virgin, her first studio album in almost four years, a record she launched with a surprise Glastonbury set that saw her perform the entire thing from start to finish. It’s the latest in a run of critically adored releases that stretches back to Pure Heroine, Melodrama and Solar Power, all top-10 UK album successes and home to hits like Royals, Green Light and Solar Power.
Festival organisers are clearly thrilled, calling her “a Grammy-winning artist and cultural force” whose introspective, left-field pop has helped redraw “the contours of modern pop”. Coming from a festival that has previously booked Tyler, The Creator, The Maccabees, Raye, and Chase & Status, that’s saying something.
Tickets go on general sale Thursday, 20 November at 9am GMT, with a pre-sale opening the day before. And with All Points East already locking in Deftones and Tyler, The Creator for other dates across the August bank holiday stretch, the 2026 edition is shaping up to be a belter.
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