Families

A brilliant interactive workshop with Neill, Phoenix comic supremo and creator of the graphic novel series Mega Robo Bros. In this fun-filled hour, Neill will introduce you to his latest epic robot book Mega Robo Bros: Final Form and show you how to generate awesome ideas for your own comics, how to turn those ideas into a fully-fledged story and how to make your stories come alive with incredible artwork.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

Draw your sabre and take on friends and family for the Hay Festival fencing crown in this have-a-go session with Fencing Cymru/Welsh Fencing. Learn the skills of this fast-paced Olympic sport in a safe and friendly environment before stepping onto the piste – en garde!

Fee Mak shares her career journey – from her start as a professional ballet dancer with the Royal Ballet School through to becoming a national BBC Radio broadcaster, and her love for literature which has led to her chairing events at leading UK literature festivals.

Join Fee in this workshop-style event, one of this of a Hay Festival series of sessions delivered by inspiring producers and practitioners from the creative industries, giving their insights, experience and advice on progression in their field.

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

Learn to draw some of Chris Haughton’s favourite illustrations from his new book, The History of Information, a graphic handbook to the biggest influence on human history.

In this informative and interesting drawing workshop, Chris will lead you on a journey through time, taking a deep dive into the story of information and how to illustrate it in his distinct signature style.

Chris is author and illustrator of many popular picture books including A Bit Lost, Oh No George!, Shh! We Have a Plan and Well Done, Mummy Penguin.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only 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.

Light. Darkness. Power. Magic. Join YA author and TikTok personality Andy Darcy Theo as he talks about his publishing journey and epic Descent into Darkness series. From BookTok to Bookshop, Andy shares the inspiration behind The Light That Blinds Us and his publication journey. He’ll offer top tips for aspiring writers and walk you through an interactive quiz to find out your elemental power! Andy Darcy Theo is a BookToker and Bookstagrammer and has been documenting his author journey as @andydarcytheo.

Reena from Bollywood Dreams Dance Company will teach you some dynamic moves in this fun Bollywood dance workshop. You’ll learn hand gestures, some technique work and choreography. By the end of the session you’ll have formed a fun Bollywood routine to take away and show your friends!

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.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

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.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

All aboard! Pamela Butchart needs your help because – big gasp – there’s been a Great Crisp Robbery. In her hilarious new book, Izzy and her friends are excited to find that their school trip involves an overnight train ride… but everything is strange. And, oh no! Their teacher has been kidnapped! Join Pamela for fun and silly stories, with lots of giggles and lots of crisps.

Pamela’s books include The Spy Who Loved School Dinners (winner of the Blue Peter Best Story Award), and My Head Teacher is a Vampire Rat (winner of the Children’s Book Award).

See if you can help Selina settle the age-old question of which tastie-tastic rice dish is the best! In My Rice is Best, Shane’s favourite meal is a big, delicious, mouth-watering bowl of rice & peas. He believes it’s the best rice in the whole wide world and can’t wait to bring some in for his lunch at school. But how will he react when he discovers that his friend, Yinka, has also brought her favourite meal of jollof rice in for lunch?

Selina Brown founded Little Miss Creative, an award-winning Female Development Agency that empowers girls in schools across the UK, and launched the Black British Book Festival, celebrating new and emerging Black British authors.

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 and their grown-ups will have you tapping sticks, roaring like dinosaurs, flying with unicorns, dancing with scarves, playing with parachutes and so much more. Come and meet our puppets, explore our range of instruments and listen to the beautiful sound of the cello.

Captivating young imaginations and creating lasting memories, these sessions offer a unique musical adventure. The perfect way to boost wellbeing, increase confidence, spark creativity and introduce children to the joy of music.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only 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.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Step into the story with now>press>play! In between events, try out this immersive audio adventure for all the family. Hear every sound, move with the action and feel the magic of storytelling come alive around you.

On the beach you find a bottle with a map inside: an X marks the spot of buried treasure! Squawker the parrot gives you a magic telescope which whisks you away to Cap’n Sardine’s pirate ship. There you walk the plank, hop on a wooden leg, look through a telescope and eventually spot Treasure Island. Will you find the golden coins?

Join the Bafta-winning actor, Strictly champion and activist, and travel through time to find the fascinating story of communication. Discover ancient language and decipher secret codes, learn about the different ways we can send, or receive, a message, explore the first hieroglyphic ‘emojis’ and investigate how animals communicate.

There will be a BSL interpreter at this event

Bear can’t find his glasses. He must have left them at Giraffe’s house. On the way over, Bear sees all kinds of animals he didn’t notice last time: an elephant, a crocodile, a flamingo, a deer. And who’s this long spotty snake lying on Giraffe’s deckchair? Through his ingenious telling of this classic comical situation, Leo Timmers (Gus’s Garage, A Home for Harry) shows us how to enjoy the world through different eyes. Join Leo as he reads us his book and then guides you to create a drawing of your very own Bear.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to this event.

How far would you go to find your way home? Find out with Zoology graduate Brogen Murphy, who’s turned their fascination with flora, fauna and clean technologies into a gripping tale of survival in the wilderness. Twenty-five years from now, no humans are allowed in the Wildlands – a vast area in Britain where wolves, lynx and bison roam free. The only exception is a high-speed train line that crosses right through the heart of the project.

Thirteen-year-old Astrid and her little sister, Indie, are onboard when their train slows to a brief, unexpected stop… and they find themselves accidentally left behind. They have only a rucksack, a phone without signal – and each other. As every wrong turn takes them deeper into the Wildlands, do they have the ingenuity and determination to survive?

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

In this arts-based workshop you’ll use collage and printmaking techniques to design a Sirens of Sustainability character to protect our rivers, waterways and oceans.

University of Worcester staff and students from the Department of Illustration and the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) return to Hay Festival with their engaging workshops to inspire young creatives. All materials and equipment provided – just bring your imagination!

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only 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.

Step into the story with now>press>play! In between events, try out this immersive audio adventure for all the family. Hear every sound, move with the action and feel the magic of storytelling come alive around you.

On a school trip to NASA, you and your classmates are accidentally sent on a mission to Mars. Over the 300-day journey, you have to guide the shuttle on its course, repair damage from a meteorite and learn how to survive in zero gravity. Will you ever make it back home?

This thrilling event combines stories, classical music and art created live before your eyes. Author and illustrator James Mayhew (Once Upon a Tune) tells the stories of some much-loved pieces of music, accompanied by musicians and live drawing. Explore Debussy’s sunken city, be dazzled by Holst’s planets and fly like a Firebird with Stravinsky. Mayhew’s unique approach opens up great music for children and is exciting for parents too!

This much-loved musical conversation-starter asks its family audiences: 1) What kind of world would you like to be living in? and 2) What will you do to create that world?

Join Shea Ferren, Male Singer of the Year at the International Eisteddfod 2023, and Peace Child International’s David Woollcombe, for what may be the most consequential conversation you will ever have.

Driven by the magisterial songs of David Gordon (brother of Cat Stevens) and marking the 80th Anniversary of the United Nations, this show gets audiences to create a collective time machine to bring themselves back from two very different futures – one in which they follow UN guidance and create a safe, sustainable future, the other in which they don’t. If, as we hope, audiences choose the first option, the workshop focuses on answering the second question.

In this arts-based workshop you’ll create a self-portrait, or a portrait of somebody or something else that you love, using DIY print-making processes, recycled materials and mixed media.

University of Worcester staff and students from the Department of Illustration and the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) return to Hay Festival with their engaging workshops to inspire young creatives. All materials and equipment provided – just bring your imagination!

Drop in for this open-air performance with puppets, music and songs, for humans of all ages. A world premiere by Keith Temple, the show is created in tandem with music and art students at Kidderminster College.

Pod, the wilful Jack Russell terrier, has no idea that he’s a dog. Thanks to his scatter-brained owner, he’s grown up thinking he’s human… until a new addition to the family – Ella, the no-nonsense guinea pig – sets him straight on a few things. Pod begins to realise it’s not at all bad being a four-legged creature…

Join us for an afternoon with the much-loved Dame Jacqueline Wilson. Discover how she started her writing career, how she created some of her best-loved characters including Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather, and hear all about her new book, a funny, heartwarming story returning to the world of Daisy and Lily.

Daisy and her sister are excited about going on holiday. But Lily uses a wheelchair, which can make trips to the seaside tricky. Especially with all that sand! Will Daisy, Lily and their neighbour’s dog Scruff get their ice cream-filled dream holiday and maybe even have a Seaside Sleepover?

There will be a BSL interpreter at this event

Are you sitting comfortably? Then he’ll begin… Settle in for a thrilling adventure from long ago, brimming with monsters, madness and gruesome humour, told by the Festival’s favourite storyteller Daniel Morden. Conall was once a hero of the people, but he has left behind his thieving ways – until three strangers come to his door and he reluctantly agrees to One Last Job, with predictably disastrous results! One part Homer’s Odyssey, one part anxiety dream, The Thief’s Tale is proof of the power of a great tale well told.

In this arts-based workshop you’ll create a self-portrait, or a portrait of somebody or something else that you love, using DIY print-making processes, recycled materials and mixed media.

University of Worcester staff and students from the Department of Illustration and the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society (ICPBS) return to Hay Festival with their engaging workshops to inspire young creatives. All materials and equipment provided – just bring your imagination!

This session is tailored for neurodivergent children.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only 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.

Join award-winning author Elle McNicoll for a conversation to launch her new YA book, Wish You Were Her. Book Lovers meets You’ve Got Mail in this enemies-to-lovers romance. Elle will share her thoughts on diving into Young Adult fiction, cosy romance, experiencing fandom and normalising neurodiversity.

Elle’s debut novel A Kind of Spark won the Blue Peter Book Award, the Overall Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and Blackwell’s Book of 2020. She is twice Carnegie nominated, and was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Awards 2020, the Branford Boase Award and the Little Rebels Award.