Give East London the credit it deserves at the East London festival, a six day celebration of everything in the East End. There’ll be more than 400 events going on through the week, concentrating on performance, art, history, food and fashion all throughout East London. Put on by Mayor of London, the festival aims to explore the diversity that East London is famous for.

Vortex tours
One of the many live arts performances in East, the Vortex tours brings together three cutting edge singer songwriters who will play free gigs in unusual venues in east London. Keep an ear out for Theo Bard, Fiona Bevan and Jonathan Geyevu as they bring their own special brands of music to the Museum of London Docklands and other locations.Performances
Special performances taking place during the East London festival include a Bollywood extravaganza at Spitalfields Market, starting at 12.30pm on Thursday 5th March, and some bold hip hop with Pied Piper at the Barbican. There is a free live music and poetry at the Museum of London, so get ready to party and dance your evening away.The arts
Some of the special East End art events taking place include The Paper Cinema at the Toynbee Studios. This show, featuring delicately hand drawn images on paper, is just one of similar events celebrating the wealth and diversity of culture in East London. The Barbican gallery also gets in on the act with the Do Something Different weekend, featuring drumming workshops and much more besides.History
Learn about the history of the area during the East London festival with activities from the Bishopsgate Insitute, like the free archaeological tour of Spitalfieds at 11am, Thursday 5th March. The Museum of London Docklands will also host a special family day where you can dress up as a Pearly King or Queen and hear all about the history of this east end London tradition.

East London fashion
As East London contains some of the most unique and exciting independent fashion outlets, the East Festival has teamed up with Old Spitalfields Market to give each festival goer the chance to get swishing! Taking place from 1pm - 4pm, Saturday 7th March and working on the premise that one person's rubbish is another person's treasure, the swishing free fashion swap gives you the chance to bring along a good, clean item of clothing and swap it for someone's else cast off. And if all that swishing gets you all feverish for fashion, you can always take a step away from East 2009 and check out the Simply Madonna clothes exhibition at the nearby Old Truman Brewery.Film for 2009
Film is a bound to be a popular subject at the East London festival for this year, and 2009 will see how the east end has been a rich source of inspiration for filmmakers over the years. With screenings of films from the early 1900s to documentaries from the 1990s, the Barbican, Rich Mix and Museum in Docklands are all taking part. The Whitechapel Gallery will be taking a major role with screenings from the Birds Eye View female filmmakers festival.Cycle East London
Get on your bike to make the most of East 2009 at the Cycle East London event. A number of special live music and theatrical performances have been organised for the afternoon of Sunday 8th March, so you can take a guided bicycle tour to and from each venue, or pedal around at your own pace.More to come
If you haven't quite had your fill of everything east London has to offer after the festival ends, then fear not. Later on in March and as part of a series of events to launch his new book, Hackney That Rose Red Empire, author Iain Sinclair will be joined by Will Self at an evening of talks and film screenings at the Southbank Centre.The East London festival takes place from Thursday 5th March to Tuesday 10th March 2009.

Events take place in and around the City, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Stratford, Hoxton, Canary Wharf and Hackney.