Welcome to our Early Bird programme. The full programme will be released at the end of March.
Join Julia Donaldson and friends in this unique show jam-packed with songs and readings from seven of her fabulous stories including The Everywhere Bear and The Gruffalo.
Leave your mark and help re-animate a classic short film. Join Dan Brown and Nick Brown from MASH Cinema and Hereford College of Arts to create and collage your own frames, and see the new film take shape over the weekend. Completed animation will be available on the Hay Festival website.
Get seriously messy with Jon Williams from Herefordshire’s Eastnor Pottery. You will see pottery demonstrations and create your own sculptural masterpieces to add to our forest critters’ colony or to take home...or both. One thing’s for sure...mud will fly!
Pip and Posy are the best of friends – most of the time. And they are always having adventures. Axel Scheffler, illustrator of Julia Donaldson’s The Gruffalo, introduces his delightful new series about the dramas of toddler life. Join him for stories, drawing and the opportunity to meet two very special surprise guests.
Aliens, dinosaurs, monsters, pirates – everyone loves underpants. Join the illustrator who helped to create Aliens Love Underpants and celebrate its tenth anniversary. Watch as Ben brings the aliens to life in this interactive event suitable for all the family. And catch a special guest appearance from somewhere far away. Alien fans can come dressed in their favourite alien outfit or in funny pants.
Leave your mark and help re-animate a classic short film. Join Dan Brown and Nick Brown from MASH Cinema and HCA to colour and collage your own frames, and see the new film take shape over the weekend. Completed animation will be available on the Hay Festival website.
Get seriously messy with Jon Williams from Herefordshire’s Eastnor Pottery. You will see pottery demonstrations and create your own sculptural masterpieces to add to our forest critter’s colony or take home...or both. One thing’s for sure...mud will fly!
The ever-popular Sir Charlie Stinky Socks in now deep in the desert on a mission to return a sack of stolen Egyptian gold back to its rightful owner. Join the writer for a musical, storytelling journey. There are mummies, pharaohs and a live performance of songs from the Sir Charlie Stinky Socks books.
Author and zoologist Nicola Davies and illustrator/artist Cathy Fisher introduce swifts – amazing birds that sleep and eat on the wing and never stop flying. Learn how to look out for them, listen for their cries and how to tell if they might be nesting where you live. Help Cathy draw a swift, see how she made the stunning artwork for Perfect, and listen to a story about how swifts helped a boy to understand his new baby sister.
Get seriously messy with Jon Williams from Herefordshire’s Eastnor Pottery. You will see pottery demonstrations and create your own sculptural masterpieces to add to our forest critter’s colony or take home...or both. One thing’s for sure...mud will fly!
Award-winner Jeffers returns to Hay Festival to entertain his many fans with stories and live drawing from his recent titles including A Child of Books, as well as giving an insight into his future titles. A Child of Books is the winner of the 2017 Bolognaragazzi Fiction Award.
Get seriously messy with Jon Williams from Herefordshire’s Eastnor Pottery. You will see pottery demonstrations and create your own sculptural masterpieces to add to our forest critters’ colony or take home...or both. One thing’s for sure...mud will fly!
Brave explorer George has packed 25 muffins for his night-time adventure in the museum to catch the fabled thief. Can he and his faithful puppy Trixie track down the criminal without getting squashed by the great big mammoth? With storytelling and funny songs, the authors bring the entertaining adventure to life.
Do you sometimes feel grumpy? Do you wish every day was your birthday? Join the author and illustrator of Grumpy Frog for a fantastic interactive event with storytelling and live drawing.
Come along to our immersive lantern-lit tented Storytelling Nook to listen to Veronica Lamond’s illustrated stories of Landy and Fender the lovable Land Rovers, and Kenyan author Aunty Kiko’s tale “Baby Elephant’s Safari, and experience how solar light is making a difference to millions of families in Africa.
Are you a budding chef or curious in the kitchen? Learn how to cook interesting food from all over the world with the Kitchen Academy, using recipes from a different culture every day. You don’t need to bring anything other than your tastebuds and your appetite...you are cooking lunch!
Come and work with Hereford College of Arts students of illustration to create exciting and inventive images. Be prepared to explore ideas beyond your imagination.
In celebration of Little Tiger Press’ 30th birthday, illustrator and paper engineer Jonny Lambert demonstrates how he creates his amazing animals. Join his workshop as he talks about Tiger Tiger and the art of illustration and storytelling. Discover the art of creating a character with the Tiger Tiger mural and create a mini 3D tiger cut-out to take home.
Penguin and his friends from Blown Away are back in a new adventure, and this time they’re pirates. While sailing the seven seas in search of treasure, Captain Blue and his friends are unexpectedly sunk. But with a shipwreck to explore and a mysterious stranger on a desert island to meet, they might still find some treasure after all. Join Rob Biddulph for story-telling and drawing.
Are you a budding chef or curious in the kitchen? Learn how to cook interesting food from all over the world with the Kitchen Academy using recipes from a different culture every day. You don’t need to bring anything other than your tastebuds and your appetite...you are cooking lunch!
Jemma Westing is an award-winning book designer and paper engineer. Her new book, Out of the Box, is packed full of amazing things to make from recycled cardboard. Join her to make and decorate your own cardboard-tube owl.
Work with this award-winning illustrator to make your own ‘Museums of Me’ to show what’s important to you or what you’re interested in, using collage, cut paper and other materials. The Museum of Me is the winner of the 2017 Bolognaragazzi Opera Prima Award.
So many things we take for granted, such as having access to basic services like electricity, remain a significant challenge for millions of people in today’s developing world. Come and find out how solar power works and can provide clean, reliable energy around the world with Chris Jardine, a leading mind in off-grid solar energy, conducting research with the Oxford Environmental Institute’s Lower Carbon Futures team.
Come along to our immersive lantern-lit tented Storytelling Nook to listen to Veronica Lamond’s illustrated stories of Landy and Fender the lovable Land Rovers, and Kenyan author Aunty Kiko’s tale “Baby Elephant’s Safari, and experience how solar light is making a difference to millions of families in Africa.
Come along to our immersive lantern-lit tented Storytelling Nook to listen to Veronica Lamond’s illustrated stories of Landy and Fender the lovable Land Rovers, and Kenyan author Aunty Kiko’s tale “Baby Elephant’s Safari, and experience how solar light is making a difference to millions of families in Africa.
Are you a budding chef or curious in the kitchen? Learn how to cook interesting food from all over the world with the Kitchen Academy using recipes from a different culture every day. You don’t need to bring anything other than your tastebuds and your appetite...you are cooking lunch!
Have you ever wanted to control the weather like the Greek god Zeus or turn someone to stone like the snake-headed monster Medusa? Take part in your own Greek Myth with Readathon storyteller Wilf Merttens and make your own mask to become a powerful god, goddess, or a fantastical monster, in one of the earliest and most enduring tales ever told. Dressing-up optional. Merttens has won many awards including Young Storyteller of the Year. As well as entertaining children in hospital with Readathon, he tells tall tales at folk clubs and festivals across the UK.
Are you a wicked witch or wizard in a magic castle, or a superhero with a secret plan to save the Universe? Let your imagination run wild to conjure up your own characters and help to create a unique Hay Tale. Led by Readathon storyteller Jen Lunn, this session will tell you about the ancient art of this oral tradition, and you can unleash your own storytelling powers. Lunn works with Readathon storytelling in hospitals and schools and has collected more than 100 stories told by children to create professional performances, podcasts and digital books.
Have you ever wanted to control the weather like the Greek god Zeus or turn someone to stone like the snake-headed monster Medusa? Take part in your own Greek Myth with Readathon storyteller Wilf Merttens and make your own mask to become a powerful god, goddess, or a fantastical monster, in one of the earliest and most enduring tales ever told. Dressing-up optional. Merttens has won many awards including Young Storyteller of the Year. As well as entertaining children in hospital with Readathon, he tells tall tales at folk clubs and festivals across the UK.
Are you a wicked witch or wizard in a magic castle, or a superhero with a secret plan to save the Universe? Let your imagination run wild to conjure up your own characters and help to create a unique Hay Tale. Led by Readathon storyteller Jen Lunn, this session will tell you about the ancient art of this oral tradition, and you can unleash your own storytelling powers. Lunn works with Readathon storytelling in hospitals and schools and has collected more than 100 stories told by children to create professional performances, podcasts and digital books.
