For those of you planning a work placement this summer, here’s something that might make you reconsider. The (Exhibition) Road Show, a nine-day street festival being held right on Imperial’s doorstep, is set to be unmissable. Part of the wider celebrations for the 2012 Olympics, the event will be held from July 28 until August 5, coinciding with the beginning of the Games.

The event draws parallels with Exhibition Road’s original namesake: the Great Exhibition of 1851. The blueprint for all ‘Great Exhibitions’ to come, it drew people from all over the world to marvel at its exhibits, presented in the spectacular (now destroyed) Crystal Palace in Hyde Park.

During next year’s festival, the lengthy refurbishment works on Exhibition Road – long the chagrin of Imperial students rushing to morning lectures – will be displayed in all their glory, along with large trailers hosting an array of different entertainments. Amongst the exhibits lined up are a number of art-science collaborations; and in the evening a live orchestra will accompany ballroom dancing and salsa.

And if all that still doesn’t tickle your interest, you won’t be able to resist the spectacular aerial acrobatics display, set amidst the columns of the College’s main entrance on Exhibition Road.