Events for Children and Young People

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

How did we get here, and where are we heading? Soak up some ideas from the globally-renowned artist and bestselling author Oliver Jeffers as he discusses his new picture book, Begin Again: The Story of How We Got Here and Where We Might Go. This powerful and thought-provoking visual examination of the state of the world builds upon Jeffers’ artistic exploration of humankind’s impact on itself and on our planet.

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to this event.

Take a deep dive into your own imagination to find treasures and passions that only poetry and song can reveal. You’ll practise creating original lyrics in this interactive event with singer, author and songwriter Casi Wyn. Casi is a familiar face in Wales, having composed original musical and lyrical works for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Sinfonia Cymru. She was the previous Bardd Plant Cymru, and is Creative Director of Codi Pais, a magazine and independent publisher that platforms new and diverse voices in Wales.

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to this event.

You are enough. You are interesting. Tell your story. Everybody can write. In this creative writing workshop Laura Dockrill, celebrated author of You Are a Story, shows how creativity can be your most valuable tool in living life your way. She opens the way to self-care, imagination and finding the stories that only you can tell. Whether you want to write for yourself or put your work out into the world, writing is for everyone.

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to this event.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Dream team Julian Clary and David Roberts spill the beans on their fabulous series. Mr and Mrs Bold are just like you and me: they live in a nice house, they have jobs and they love to have a bit of a giggle. One slight difference: they’re hyenas. Yes, that’s right – they’re covered in fur, have tails tucked into their trousers, and they really, really like to laugh. So far, the Bolds have managed to keep things under wraps, even when their children Bobby and Betty were born. But when the nosy man next door smells a rat (or a hyena), could it spell the end of their well-kept secret? Whatever will the neighbours think?

Welcome to Happy Hills – it’s a place where anything can happen and always does! Join Sophy Henn, author/illustrator extraordinaire of the hilariously funny graphic novel series. She takes us on a journey through Happy Hills to meet the friendly and not-so-friendly residents, discovering lots of characters along the way who make you flex those creative muscles.

Get your Hay day off to a brilliant start with our daily Ready, Steady, Music workshops! With different activities each day, these interactive, fun-filled sessions for mini musicians will have you tapping sticks, roaring like dinosaurs, flying with unicorns, dancing with scarves, playing with parachutes and much more. Come and meet our puppets, explore our instruments and be accompanied by the beautiful sound of the cello.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Find out how families begin and how you become a part of your family, with award-winning GP and presenter Dr Amir Khan (Good Morning Britain, You Are What You Eat). Dr Khan brings his incredible knowledge, and passion for sharing it, to the question of where babies come from and what happens to them next.

Delve into the secret world of wizardry with psychologist and Member of the Inner Magic Circle Professor Richard Wiseman. He reveals how learning magic tricks can boost your confidence, social skills, creativity, happiness and much, much more. Experience the world’s greatest optical illusions, have fun discovering how to perform magic, uncover the secret science of sorcery, and find out how to transform a tea towel into a chicken!

Find out how to make a picture book with award-winning author/illustrator Mariajo Ilustrajo. You’ll have the chance to create one of your own with Mariajo in this interactive workshop featuring her newest picture book I Love Books. Discover how she goes about creating them, learn how to draw the characters from I Love Books and decide for yourself the order the pages will go in. What colours will you choose for your drawings?

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to draw along in this event.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Meet Jack-Jack, the world’s coolest dog, who looks after orphaned chimpanzees in Africa; he’s about to embark on his biggest adventure ever. “I spend my days playing with baby chimps. When I meet Ben, suddenly, I have more baths than ever (previously none). I wave goodbye to my pet fleas, and prepare to fly thousands of miles. I’ve never been on a lead or in a car, so what will an aeroplane be like?”

Ruchira Gupta tells the courageous story of a young girl in India who faces being sold into the sex trade by her father to repay his loans. After a chance meeting with a kung fu instructor, 14-year-old Heera realises there is another way – using her body to protect herself and those she loves. So when her best friend from school goes missing, Heera embarks on a daring rescue mission that will take her all the way to New York.

Gupta is founder-president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking organisation that has helped thousands of girls and women in India leave a life of forced prostitution. She is a social justice activist, feminist campaigner, Emmy Award-winning documentarian and professor at New York University who has dedicated her life to creating a world where no child is bought or sold. I Kick and I Fly is her debut novel.

Find out how to make a picture book with award-winning author/illustrator Mariajo Ilustrajo. You’ll have the chance to create one of your own with Mariajo in this interactive workshop featuring her newest picture book I Love Books. Discover how she goes about creating them, learn how to draw the characters from I Love Books and decide for yourself the order the pages will go in. What colours will you choose for your drawings?

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to draw along in this event.

Do you ever wonder where the stuff around you all came from? No, not from the shops. I mean, who had the amazing idea of making video games or the annoying idea of building a school? In this laugh-out-loud event with the record-breaking and extremely handsome Adam Kay and Henry Paker, you’ll learn about everything ever invented, from the daft to the disgusting to the downright dangerous. You’ll discover the queen who pooed on the first ever toilet, how velcro was invented by a dog and why the Ancient Greeks wiped their bums on dinner plates, as well as 48,762,851,208 other facts. (Approximately.)

Worldbuilding is the key to captivating stories in films, television and gaming as well as books. You’ll have fun working together in this interactive session to help you create your own unique world. Gita Ralleigh is the author of The Destiny of Minou Moonshine and The Voyage of Sam Singh, both magical adventures set in a parallel colonial India.

Do you ever get stuck for a story idea, or when you’ve started writing quickly run out of steam? Author Emma Carroll (The Somerset Tsunami, The Week at World’s End) shares tips on how to fire your imagination in this fun, interactive workshop, searching out potential ideas and inspirations to encourage you to keep writing. You’ll consider how the unique experience of being you can be useful when writing, as well as trying out some short exercises to warm up your creativity so you’re ready to put pen to paper.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven. And while you wait for your pizza to cook, you can decorate your own pizza box!
Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Dermot O’Leary, the popular presenter and author of the Toto the Ninja Cat series, swoops into Hay Festival to tell us all about his brand new action-adventure story with a feathery twist. Wings of Glory is a wartime tale guaranteed to make you laugh and cry – featuring courageous loop-the-loops, top secret plans and more than a smattering of bird poo!

Unlock the mystic art of curse writing in this hands-on ‘invocations’ workshop, where you’ll craft personalised spells with Krystal Sutherland, inspired by the witchy world of The Invocations. Join the bestselling author for an enchanting session of creativity and magic, and leave with your own bespoke curse. No humans are harmed in the making of this curse!

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to this event.