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 Ken Livingstone, the festival aims to explore the diversity that East London is famous for.

Ring the bells
Starting off the festival in 2007 was a ringing of the famous Bow Bells. The bells of St Mary-le-Bow, St Paul’s Cathedral and 28 other churches rang their bells to kick off last years festival and plans are afoot for more of the same again this year, but with even more bells involved!

Performances
Special performances taking place during the East London festival include a performance of Sufi music at St Ethelburgas church, a selection of Chinese violin music from Chi2 at Rich Mix, and comedians Shazia Mirza and Shapphi Khorsandi put on a show for International Women's Week.

The arts
Some of the special East End art events taking place include Imagination our Nation launch by performance company Kinetika. An exhibition of carnival cornucopia will celebrate the wealth and diversity of culture in East London, and give insight into the nature of carnival around the world. The Barbican gallery also gets in on the act with a Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art, which presents contemporary art as though it had been curated by aliens.

History
Learn about the history of the area during the East London festival with activities from the Hackney Museum, like the author day and historical tours of Hackney. The Geffrye Museum will also host a special family day, and the Museum of London are opening up the excavations of London's only Roman amphitheatre. Museum in Docklands concentrates on marking the contribution to the East end from the LGBT community, with an exhibitioon about black gay and lesbian Londoners.East London fashion
As East London contains some of the most unique and exciting independent fashion outlets, the East Festival has teamed up with Wedge to give each festival goer free taster membership of the Wedge Card which gives discounts in local shops. Forget London Fashion Week, East 2008 brings you the best of fashion with a serious of special catwalk shows at the Truman Brewery.

Film for 2008
Film is a new addition to the East London festival for this year, and 2008 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.Fantastic food
Head to Taste East for a two day food festival chock full of specialist food and drink stalls. The food will reflect the cultural diversity of the area and feature specialities from local restaurants and farms. There’ll also be live food demonstrations and entertainment.The East London festival takes place from Thursday 6th March to Tuesday 11th March 2008.

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

For more information on East call 020 7983 4100.