Opening this year’s Henley Festival on the iconic Floating Stage are legends who scarcely need an introduction, Boy George & Culture Club. With a career spanning more than four decades, the Grammy Award‑winning group first burst onto the global scene in the early 1980s, becoming one of the UK’s most influential cultural exports.

Their arrival in 1982 sent shockwaves through the music world, reshaping not only pop but the wider landscape of fashion, art and identity. Over the decades that followed, Culture Club broke boundaries and records alike—winning a Grammy for Best New Artist, BRIT Awards for Best British Group and Best British Single, and becoming the first band since The Beatles to score three US Top 10 hits from a debut album. They were also the first in music history to earn a diamond‑certified album in Canada, with global hits such as Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me cementing their place in pop history.

With more than 100 million singles and 50 million albums sold worldwide, Culture Club remain true icons. Frontman Boy George stands as one of the most distinctive, unapologetic innovators of his generation—an artist who changed the face of popular culture and continues to inspire today.