Hay Festival 2025 Full Programme

Start your day with an hour of movement and breathwork. Our daily yoga classes are brought to you by a collective of highly skilled practitioners, all local to Hay-on-Wye. Each practitioner has their own style, but whichever class you attend, you can expect a mindful, student-focused practice with clear cueing and functional sequencing. Blending movement, mantra, meditation and breathwork, the classes support detoxification and regeneration – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Whether you need grounding and recharging before a busy day at the Festival, an opportunity to stretch and move your body, or simply an hour to focus on your breathing, these yoga classes are open and accessible to all. Practitioners will adapt to different levels of experience, providing options for deepening or softening within poses so that each student takes what they need from the practice. Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats are provided.

Please contact Clare Fry at hello@larchwoodstudio.com with any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

Featured in the BBC’s Digging for Britain, Snodhill Castle is the hidden gem of the Golden Valley. Explore the Norman ruins in their medieval parkland setting, including the high keep, the newly conserved Royal Free Chapel site and wall walk, and the C15th ‘panic room’ with its fortified latrine chutes. Hear the story of its discovery and preservation, from an expert guide.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee! Among today’s guests is Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire and Simon Hart, Conservative politician and author of The Sunday Times Top 5 Bestseller Ungovernable.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. You’ll be joined by local experts who will give their insights into this treasured landscape

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of walks take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Come and hear the full, funny, feminist and entertaining story of one of our best-loved, and most versatile, actors. Alison Steadman recounts her inspiring and exhilarating journey from Liverpool to London drama school, and looks back over her many stellar roles, from Beverley’s overbearing party hosting and Mrs Bennet’s ailing ‘nerves’ to Pamelaaaa’s instantly-regretted vegetarian declaration.

Growing up in Liverpool as the entertainer of the family, impersonating neighbours to the delight of her friends and playing pranks on her unwitting mother, the young Alison Steadman had no idea of the roles and awards in store for her. But when she snuck off to London to audition for drama school in secret, she started the process of becoming one of today’s greatest character actors.

Travel through time back to Ancient Egypt with the author of the Adventures on Trains and The Twitchers series. Discover how a trip down the Nile inspired her newest fast-paced adventure, the first in her new Time Keys series. Explore the Valley of the Kings, where the tombs of the Pharaohs can be found, unravel the ancient art of mummification, learn about heart scarabs, the Book of the Dead and the possible location of the lost tomb of Nefertiti. The perfect event for adventure enthusiasts, budding Egyptologists and time travellers!

Author/illustrator Huw Aaron performs a laugh-out-loud read-along of his new picture book Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob – because even monsters need a bedtime story! You can also join in a wild and wacky monster draw-along with Huw. Warm, funny… and slimy, Sleep Tight, Disgusting Blob is a rhyming delight, ending with a kiss and sweet dreams for all.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to 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 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.

Legend has it that Hay Castle was built in a day by a giantess called Matilda who hurled a stone across the Wye at the end of construction. Find out about this story and more with this entry ticket that also allows you to visit the castle as many times as you like for a year. Explore Matilda’s room, the castle’s costumes and cellars, and the Richard Booth Archive, and make your way right to the top for amazing views from the viewing platform.

This ticket allows you to visit the Castle at a time of your choice on the day selected, and also gives you entry into the 20th Century Welsh Artists exhibition on the second floor.

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.

Join us for an exclusive guided tour led by one of our passionate volunteer guides during Hay Festival 2025. Our knowledgeable guides will take you on a captivating journey through the castle, revealing tales of medieval knights, royal intrigue and the castle’s remarkable restoration. As you explore the castle you’ll gain unique insights into the lives of those who once called this place home. The tour also offers breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside, providing the perfect backdrop for your visit.

Guided tours run daily at 11am and 2pm. Tour price includes entry into the Castle for a year including the current exhibition: 20th Century Welsh Artists.

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.

Mary Trump grew up in the shadow of her father Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father Fred. Fred believed that among his children there could only be one winner, and rather than it being his namesake Freddy, that winner was now-president Donald Trump.

But Freddy never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Aged 42, he finally succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room.

Mary Trump, niece of President Trump, reveals the inside story of the Trump family and its patriarch, and the effect it had on her own life, to broadcaster Samira Ahmed. This event offers a unique and personal insight into the Trump family and the cold, selfish cruelty that has come to define it. Trump is a psychologist and writer, author of Too Much and Never Enough.

Join the inimitable Ben Okri as he introduces his new work Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted, an homage to TS Eliot’s The Waste Land.

The novella tells the story of Viv, who throws a festival on the 20th anniversary of the day her first husband left her. There, the special guest is world-renowned clairvoyant and fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, not seen since the pages of The Waste Land.

Okri has won many prizes for his fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright and poet. In 2019 his Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World.

David Reid’s book Running the Risk is a guide to understanding life’s biggest risks – from shark attacks to nuclear disaster – and how we build a safer future. From the seemingly mundane act of crossing the road to the complex web of global connections, risk permeates our daily existence – but doesn’t have to blight it.

Hey is responsible for leading the World Risk Poll, Impact and establishing a Global Safety Evidence Centre for the Lloyds Register Foundation. The World Risk Poll and Resilience Index is the first and only global study of worry about, and harm from, risks to people’s safety. These unique data are collected and made freely available by the Foundation as a public good.

David Reid is Director of Global Advocacy at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, while Nancy Hey is the Foundation’s Director of Evidence & Insight. In conversation with Hay Festival Sustainability Director Andy Fryers, they consider the effects of risk and explore how we can redefine our understanding of resilience.

Strap in for the launch of Cressida Cowell’s How to Train your Dragon School: Doom of the Darkwing, her first novel in the Dragon world for 10 years. This new series follows Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, and his dragons Toothless and Windwalker, who have joined the Viking and Dragon Training School on the Isle of Berk, to learn how to be great barbarians and dragon sidekicks. And before they know it, they are bottom in pretty much everything… These new standalone adventures are action-packed and perfect for developing readers.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to this event.

We present the winning authors and illustrators of the 2025 IBC Awards in this interactive family storytelling event. IBC (Inclusive Books for Children) is a charity with a free website for families, schools and libraries to help easily choose books for a more inclusive bookshelf. Showcasing stories that represent all types of family, they feature books with a variety of ethnicities, positive images of disabilities and different identities.

The annual IBC Awards celebrate the talent behind the best new inclusive children’s books published in the UK across three categories: baby and toddler books (1–3 years), picture books (3–7 years) and highly illustrated children’s fiction (5–9 years).

The Festival bookshop features a dedicated Inclusive Books for Children section showcasing IBC’s top-reviewed books of the year. Come along and get your books signed after the event!