Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2026

Greg James and Chris Smith need your help with an incredibly important mission. Ever heard of Santa Claus – a kindly old man who delivers presents to kids each Christmas Eve? Or is he actually a cool, suave super-spy? In this hilarious, high-energy, interactive event, find out how Santa gets recruited by the Secret Service as their newest secret agent, Treble-Ho Seven. Armed with exploding sprouts and smoke-grenade crackers, will he be able to rescue the super-spies and save Christmas? Perfect for families, or anyone who fancies kicking off their Saturday morning with an entertaining hour in the company of Greg and Chris.

Hear the eye-opening account of one of the world’s first ever whistleblowers on toxic chemicals – and a scandal that leads from a Welsh farm to the heart of corporate America.

Husband-and-wife duo Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor are award-winning investigative journalists and the force behind the BBC’s Buried podcasts. When they come across confidential evidence from a crucial witness to the scandal, it leads them to an unlikely friendship with actor Michael Sheen… but they soon find themselves knee-deep in toxic chemicals and chasing down gangs, going all-out in pursuit of a question: could the chemicals be killing people today?

Hosted by veteran Welsh journalist Bethan Rhys Roberts.

Is your mind always racing? Do you struggle to slow down when your days are so busy? Join fitness instructor and former Buddhist monk Sam Yo for an interactive session that offers both emotional insight and practical tools to guide you back to calm, focus and purpose.

Sam talks to writer and broadcaster Cole Morton, sharing the transformative lessons that have helped him move from chaos to clarity. Drawing on his monastic training, he leads a short breathwork practice as well as a gratitude exercise, promoting mindfulness, self-discovery, resilience and spiritual growth. Come along to discover that the stillness you seek has been within you all along.

Enjoy an exhilarating performance by Got 2 Sing Choir as they sing uplifting numbers from top of the charts to golden oldies and festive classics, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Our pop-up music sessions offer magical interludes between events in the atmospheric Great Hall at Hay Castle.

A truly remarkable account from Scotland’s former First Minister of how to lead a country when international events have thrown your own family into crisis. When Humza Yousaf got a call from Gaza on the morning of 7th October 2023, he feared the worst. His wife’s parents had travelled there from their home in Dundee to visit a sick relative. Now, after the Hamas terrorist attack, they were caught in Israel’s fierce response.

Yousaf reveals his desperate attempts to get his in-laws out of Gaza and safely back home. While supporting his wife and children as they waited for news, Yousaf also had to lead the whole of Scotland – as well as reassure the nation’s traumatised Jewish community. An honest and timely conversation about how to cope when the personal and the political become inextricably linked.He talks to journalist, Nicola Cutcher, about how to cope when the personal and the political become inextricably linked.

What can we learn about life from the Queen of Crime? The enduring appeal of the most successful writer of the 20th century is no accident – Agatha Christie combines escapist glamour with psychological insight that still resonates. Why do we find it so fascinating?

Lucy Foley has written the first authorised Miss Marple novel since Christie’s last – Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel sees the unassuming sleuth tackle a suspicious death high in the Swiss Alps. Cathy Rentzenbrink delves into Christie’s own life in The Agatha Christie Cure, unearthing an adventurer and innovator who hid, in the pages of her own books, the secrets of how she survived a personal crisis. They talk to writer and comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean.

Come on a delightfully obsessive search for marine dinosaur fossils… and reimagine what really matters in life along the way. Matthew Myerscough was a keen mountaineer until he was caught up in a terrifying avalanche on Yr Wyddfa as a young man. Searching for a less extreme hobby as he healed, he returned to his childhood passion of fossil-hunting on the beaches near his home in South Wales. Here he charts his journey from novice to expert, taking in some jaw-dropping discoveries on the way. He’s still searching for his dream find – a complete ichthyosaur. But what’s more rewarding – the grand discovery, or the unexpected treasures you come across as you search?

Enjoy an exhilarating performance by Got 2 Sing Choir as they sing uplifting numbers from top of the charts to golden oldies and festive classics, with plenty of fun and laughter.

Our pop-up music sessions offer magical interludes between events in the atmospheric Great Hall at Hay Castle.

Does time have a beginning or an end? Is it even a real thing? Spend what we call an hour unravelling one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of science with quantum physicist and BBC science presenter Jim Al-Khalili.

He shares fresh insights into some of the most complex and profound questions in science, changing the way you think not just about the passage of time, but your place within it.

We think of the witch hunts of the 1500s as ancient history – but could they ever happen again? Join campaigners Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi with feminist writer Kate Lister to find out why the trials ripped through the country as they did, sealing the fate of many women with brutal execution.

Drawing on their Sunday Times bestseller How to Kill a Witch, they break down the horrifying process followed to identify, accuse, torture and convict. Attempting to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, they reveal the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such outrageous lengths to silence women.

Get into the Christmas spirit with this beautiful collection of seasonal stories inspired by the well-known carol. Bestselling author Susan Stokes-Chapman talks to antiques expert and presenter Kate Bliss about how she’s reimagined each of the gifts of the twelve days of Christmas, weaving them skilfully into a series of festive tales depicting life and love in the early 19th century.

We meet three sisters vying for the hand of a dastardly duke, two servants hiding a dangerous secret, and a soldier making his way home from war. Everything culminates at the village’s annual Twelfth Night Ball... The perfect way to spend a cosy Saturday afternoon at the Winter Weekend.

Join us for an uplifting and festive performance by Hay Community Choir in Hay Castle’s historic Great Hall. The choir is a local group which believes in the joy of music for all, so don’t miss their performance from the Castle’s gallery on your Winter Weekend Saturday afternoon.

Spend an intimate afternoon with acclaimed actor and screenwriter Greg Wise, sharing his personal experiences of loss as a way of helping us all to be more open about the pain of losing loved ones. In this strikingly thoughtful and moving session, he’ll set out the importance of honesty, vulnerability and ritual to navigate the chaotic, messy journey of death. And he calls for us to reject the behind-closed-doors culture of mourning, in favour of a more open processing of grief, as a direct path to being able to be happy again. “I don’t think I ever really felt joy until I faced into my grief,” he says. Greg talks to psychotherapist and author Julia Samuel.

Our most vital workforce is under threat – but are we failing to see it? A fascinating discussion debunking the myth that peasants are backward and archaic, and showing instead how reliant the world economy still is on their labour.

Talking to author and historian David Olusoga, Maryam Aslany shares her rigorous research demonstrating that this two-billion-strong workforce grows a third of our food and sustains our landscapes, producing everything from supermarket staples to the most exclusive luxuries. It’s a story taking in food insecurity, migration crises, climate change and global inequality that challenges us all to open our eyes to a hidden world we all depend on for our survival.

Embark on a fascinating journey through the rare sounds of the wilderness, with award-winning documentary filmmaker Justin Anderson. Drawing on his real-life experiences as the producer and director of hugely successful natural history documentaries – including Planet Earth – Justin demonstrates the unique ways that animals communicate, the incredible advances in the field of bioacoustics, and the innovative ways in which sound recordings are being used to make advances in conservation and ecology.

From blue whales that can converse between hemispheres to the elusive whistling of the Northern Lights, discover some of the most unusual and impressive natural sounds on the planet.

Feel the Hay Shantymen’s soaring voices all around as they fill Hay Castle’s 13th century Great Hall with their renditions of foot-stomping seafaring songs and traditional shanties. Relax beside the Hall’s roaring fireplace between events, soak up the castle’s historic atmosphere and immerse yourself in music and the moment.

A fantastic opportunity to hear first-hand from two of the curators at the British Museum responsible for the exhibition of the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s currently on loan there – the first time it’s been displayed outside France in almost a thousand years. Talking to antiques expert and presenter Kate Bliss, Sue Brunning and Lloyd de Beer take us behind the scenes at the museum to reveal the work that went into bringing this iconic masterpiece to Britain, and unpick the historical significance of its 58 scenes, revealing an account of 11th-century life like no other.

How do ordinary people achieve the extraordinary? In 2025, the Maclean brothers – Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan – set the fastest known time for rowing across the Pacific Ocean, raising £1 million for charity in the process. But how did they grow from complete novices into record-breaking pros?

Find out how the journey – nail-biting, uplifting and inspiring – tested their resolve, their relationships and their belief in one another.

The brothers are founders of the Maclean Foundation, with a mission to raise funds for clean water projects. They talk to Tori James, a record-breaking adventurer who herself has taken on some of the most extreme challenges on our planet.

Revisit the excitement of steam travel and dig deep into every detail of the early railways across our region. Local historian Heather Hurley offers a fascinating and richly-illustrated account of the historical network in Herefordshire and the Marches. Unpicking the often haphazard web of the early railways, she traces the lines and infrastructure, the investors, engineers and navvies, the stations, bridges and tunnels, and the charismatic steam locomotives that criss-crossed the region up until the 1960s. Recalling the chuff-chuff of the pistons and the toooooot! of the whistle, this event will transport you back to the golden age of steam travel.

Feel the Hay Shantymen’s soaring voices all around as they fill Hay Castle’s 13th century Great Hall with their renditions of foot-stomping seafaring songs and traditional shanties. Relax beside the Hall’s roaring fireplace between events, soak up the castle’s historic atmosphere and immerse yourself in music and the moment.