Events for Children and Young People

Come and enjoy some music in the Bookshop Garden. The Hereford College of Arts Vocal Ensemble perform their dynamic repertoire of four-part harmony arrangements from popular and traditional songs.

Sparks fly in this fast-paced and fiery production in the open air. Hereford College of Arts theatre students present These Violent Delights, a visceral exploration of the relationships found in Shakespeare, from Hermia and Helena to Beatrice and Benedick.

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

Did you know that something as simple as planting a sunflower can provide food for insects and birds? CBeebies’ Hamza Yassin explains how everyday nature heroes play a crucial part in our ecosystem, and how you have a role to play too! From the smallest seed to the tallest tree, everything in nature has a purpose. Come on your own Eco Quest and find out how to make your nature walks an interactive journey of discovery. Can you find some lichen on a wall or tree, earthworms in the ground or a dandelion growing through a crack in the pavement?

Get super brainy with zero effort thanks to Waldo Pancake, aka Jim Smith, the author and illustrator behind the Barry Loser books. Why is misspelling stuff a sign of grate intelly-genz? What have the hours in the day got to do with finger bones? Why does rain on a pavement smell so delish? Zany and laugh-out-loud bonkers, Jim introduces his new graphic novel and teaches you how to be a Genius Kid!

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

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

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Come on down and unlock your brain power! The No Brainer Show is an outrageously entertaining event hosted in person by bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney. You’ll be invited to join Jeff on stage and to face off in brain-challenging game show-style activities to support your local library. Expect an epically fun event that celebrates the latest Wimpy Kid book and explores the outer limits of the brain.

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

In Mice on the Moon, the heroic Adventuremice have been summoned by an inventor-mouse. Millie’s Uncle Bernie has built a spaceship and he wants them to fly it. BOOM! Pedro and his friends blast into outer space, where they become the first mice on the moon. Or so they think…

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

You’ll be inspired to get growing, get cooking and get plant-powered eating in this hands-on workshop led by green-fingered duo Darryl Gadzekpo and Ella Phillips. Their passion for gardening and cooking with their children has spurred them to write From Plant to Plate, a visual feast full of all the tips you need to transform seeds into mighty fruit, vegetables, and herbs, and to cook your home-grown ingredients.

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.

In historian and broadcaster Alice Roberts’ new children’s novel, Wolf Road, prehistoric Tuuli travels with her tribe through the seasons – making camp, hunting for food and protecting themselves against the hazards the climate throws at them. She knows there’s a bigger world out there, and when she spots a strange boy lurking outside their camp, she realises he might hold the adventure she is looking for. He is from another tribe, and as he and Tuuli strike up an unlikely friendship, they set out on a journey that will influence the rest of human history. Find out about the real anthropological discoveries that inspired this tale full of wild animals and heart-stopping danger.

Award-winning author, playwright and screenwriter Alex Wheatle’s work often explores themes of identity, race and social injustice, drawing on his own experiences as a black British man. Alex was born in Brixton, South London, in 1963. His parents were Jamaican immigrants and he grew up in a children’s home after being placed there by social services at the age of six. In 1981, Alex went to prison for his involvement in the Brixton riots: this transformational period in his life was adapted for screen in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe production. With BBC broadcaster Clive Myrie, Alex discusses his life experiences and how they have shaped his writing, including the final book in his bestselling Crongton series – In The Ends.

You’ll be inspired to get growing, get cooking and get plant-powered eating in this hands-on workshop led by green-fingered duo Darryl Gadzekpo and Ella Phillips. Their passion for gardening and cooking with their children has spurred them to write From Plant to Plate, a visual feast full of all the tips you need to transform seeds into mighty fruit, vegetables, and herbs, and to cook your home-grown ingredients.

Join the award-winning and much-loved author, comedian and actor for a fun-filled event centred on his action-packed children’s books, The Boy With Wings and The Book of Legends. His latest title, Clash of the Superkids, sees the return of Tunde Wilkinson, an ordinary boy who happens also to be a winged superhero. Lenny chats to compère Mic Lord, a theatre maker, MC and recording artist, all about Tunde’s impossible mission and super powers, and reveals an extract from the book.

You’ve heard of Pandora’s box and the story of Mulan, but what about Melusine’s curse or the Wawalag Sisters’ travels? The award-winning Dr Jean Menzies, author of Greek Myths, is back with Goddesses and Heroines – a sparkling introduction to key female figures from cultures all over the world. Discover some of the lesser-known stories of legendary women from across the globe, from Japanese goddess of the dawn Ame-no-Uzume to Tuonetar, Finnish queen of the Underworld.

How do stories start? Where can we find them? And how do we know whether or not what we’ve written is even good enough? Sarah Crossan, award-winning author of The Weight of Water, Apple and Rain, will lead you in a series of poetry and prose exercises designed to build confidence and get your pen moving. This workshop is for all writers, from beginners to experienced.

Please bring your own notebook and pen or pencil to 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.

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

The funniest author-illustrator, brother-sister duo is back to raise the roof with games, draw-alongs and silly stories. The bestselling creators of The Fart that Changed the World present their hilarious new adventure, The Day I Fell Down the Toilet. Find out what happens when timid Timothy Trench is plunged down a toilet into the land where jokes come from and is challenged to find the funniest joke in the land – or else… Laugh-alongs guaranteed!

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

An unmissable wild family gameshow with acclaimed French comedian Marcel Lucont, in which kids get to be pests, politicians and pétomanes (Google it) in order to be crowned the most awful child. See what happens when international insouciance meets infantile exuberance. A huge hit at Edinburgh Fringe and many other festivals, the award-winning comic channels his acerbic humour and quickfire wit into a series of tasks for the younger generation, which is every bit as entertaining for adults as it is for children. Très funny!

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

Take a deep breath and jump in with Greg Jenner for a totally chaotic trip to ancient Egypt! The historian and chart-topping You’re Dead to Me podcaster busts myths, unravels fascinating facts and uncovers mind-boggling surprises about everything from pharaohs and Egyptian gods to mummies and the pyramids. In a whirlwind event, Greg brings ancient Egypt to life to show you what it would really have been like to live in this extraordinary era. So hold on tight for a history-packed, hilarious and entertaining ride.

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

Sue Hendra, co-creator of the bestselling Supertato picture books, will be in Hay to celebrate the 10th birthday of our favourite supermarket superhero.

If you’re looking for fun and giggles galore, this veggie adventure-fest is the family show for you. There will be stories, silliness and everyone will get a chance to make their own veggie super-hero to take home.

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

Much-loved storyteller Michael Morpurgo, creator of such popular stories as War Horse and Kensuke’s Kingdom, invites a new generation of readers to discover the magic of Shakespeare. He and a cast of special guests bring ten of his favourite Shakespeare plays alive for a young audience, in warm and accessible retellings. From Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Winter’s Tale, this is the perfect introduction to the Bard. In his own words, “I thought it was important for young people to know these stories, to read them told in a language they will readily understand, and in a way they can enjoy so that they might be all the more likely to want to read the great plays of Shakespeare and go to see them on stage.”

What’s your favourite long word? Peter the Cat, a favourite character from Zeb Soanes’ Gaspard the Fox picture book series, always has the right one for any particular situation. Bring your thinking cap to join the author and Classic FM broadcaster as he introduces his feline friend and explains some of Peter’s favourite ‘big words’.

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