Covent Garden is the only district in London to have a license for street performers and entertainers.

In August 2007 Covent Garden launched London’s first food Night Market.

In 1974, a new market was set up between Battersea and Vauxhall, to cater largely for the demand of restaurants and catering departments. This market is known as New Covent Garden Market, due to the transfer of trade from the original market in Covent Garden.

Covent Garden Market and the Royal Opera House are featured in George Bernard Shaw’s classic play Pygmalion and Alan Lerner’s musical adaptation My Fair Lady. It is at the market that Professor Henry Higgins first encounters Eliza Doolittle selling flowers, on his return from a night at the opera.

The area has been used for numerous other films, and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1972 film Frenzy was in part filmed in the fruit stalls and pubs in Covent Garden.