Expect three days of performances, exhibitions, reunions, music and community, a celebration of what this university has been, what it is right now, and everything it’s still becoming.
Sixty years ago, our university opened its doors on a hilltop above Canterbury and changed the lives of everyone who walked through them. This June, we’re bringing those lives back together, and inviting everyone who wants to be part of the next chapter to join us for a weekend of events on our Canterbury campus from 19–21 June 2026.
Come Home for the Weekend: Alumni Homecoming
Whether you’re one of our pioneering First 500 or a recent graduate, this weekend is yours. Come back to Canterbury, walk the campus, find your old haunts, and discover what’s changed. Reconnect with the people you studied alongside and meet the students who are living the experience you remember. The alumni programme has something for everyone starting with the homecoming BBQ, a nostalgic ‘bar’ crawl across campus, and Friday Night Comedy in the Gulbenkian. Saturday brings the Diamond gala dinner, and as the longest days of the year approach a summer solstice picnic on the slopes. After sunset, head to the Venue for a party where the soundtrack will take you straight back to the year you graduated. This weekend is a chance to remember all of it, and to feel, again, exactly what it means to be Kent.
Friday Night: Comedy on Campus
There’s no better way to start a weekend than with a great night of comedy, and this one delivers. Friday night’s showcase features Laura Lexx, host of the Comedy Bureau; the brilliant Kyrah Gray; and Kent alumni Adam Dorr, West End New Act of the Year 2025 and a rising star who started right here on this campus. All under the tutelage of Dr Ollie Double, who presides as host for the evening. The room will be proof – if you needed it – that Kent has always nurtured people worth watching. It’s a night that’s funny, warm, and quietly full of pride. Exactly the right note to set for the weekend ahead.
The Creative Present: End of Year Shows and Showcases
While alumni are coming home, current students are having their moment. Across the weekend, the campus becomes a showcase for the best work of the academic year. The School of Arts and Architecture presents Connect, its 2026 End of Year Show, featuring performances, installations and exhibitions across disciplines, from architecture to drama, from history of art to film and media, from graphic design to urban planning via spatial and interior design. Thought-provoking, technically brilliant, and occasionally completely unexpected – this is student work at its finest. Co-organised by staff and students, Connect will begin on 18 June at 7pm at the Gulbenkian Theatre with Gulb Picks, a selection of the best short performances by final year Drama student companies. On 19 June from 5.30pm, Connect invites everyone to visit the Marlowe Building for an interdisciplinary exhibition comprising original drawings, posters, models, photos, videos, installations, site-specific performances and a curated show of prints from the University collection.
To represent the full breadth of what a Kent education looks like in practise, subjects are opening their doors to show you. Project showcases bring the talent of tomorrow to life, from engineering to Social Sciences, holding talks tours and multimedia presentations across campus. A Student Business Market where the entrepreneurs of tomorrow will be very much open for business.
On the Templeman lawn, Culture Fest brings everything together, current student societies performing in the open air, the kind of afternoon that captures the diversity and potential essential about life at Kent.
If you’ve ever wondered what a university looks like when it’s firing on all cylinders, this is the weekend to find out.
Sunday Morning: Jazz Brunch with Earl Okin
Earl Okin, international jazz and bossa nova artist, songwriter, and one of Kent’s very own First 500 students, joins the line-up for a jazz brunch that feels like the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.
The Next Sixty Years: Everyone is Welcome
We Are Kent is not just about looking back. It’s about everyone who is going to be part of what comes next. Future students, local residents, business stakeholders, community partners –we want to meet you. Enjoy a mixture of free and ticketed events and continuing our fabulous collaboration with Fenwick, expect Pop Up Stores and Makeovers all over campus all weekend.
Come and see the end-of-year showcases. Come to the comedy night, the Jazz Brunch, Solstice on the Slopes. Walk the campus and feel what sixty years of ambition, creativity and community actually looks like. Kent has shaped thousands of lives. It’s still shaping them now. And the next sixty years are wide open.
We Are Kent: Past, Present, Future and Alumni Homecoming Weekend | 19 –21 June 2026 | Canterbury Campus Tickets and full programme coming soon.