Hay Festival 2024

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

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 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.

A fantastic opportunity to see behind the scenes of this unique and historic building. Visit at a time of your choice during Castle opening hours.

Featured in the BBC’s Digging for Britain, Snodhill Castle is the hidden gem of the Golden Valley. Explore the Norman ruins including the high keep, Royal Free Chapel and the newly-discovered ‘panic room’, and hear the story of its discovery and preservation. Guided by Bill Klemperer, former Principal Inspector of Ancient Monuments, Historic England.

Waterstones Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho is joined by fellow authors Frank Cottrell-Boyce (Patron of The Reader Organisation) and Cressida Cowell (Children’s Laureate 2019–22) as they delve into the history of children’s literature, taking us on a whistle stop tour of some of their own all-time favourite books. They discuss the benefits of reading through childhood and consider the impact their own works may have had on the young, developing brain, while acclaimed film and stage actor Freddie Fox (The Crown, House of the Dragon) performs readings from some much-loved children’s classics.

Brought to you by The Queen’s Reading Room, the literary charity set up by Her Majesty Queen Camilla, which is on a mission to spread the joy of reading.

Start your day at Hay Festival with our daily news review. Join our leading journalists and special guests as they take us behind the headlines with insider perspectives, insights and an eye on what’s next. Strong coffee recommended! Among today’s guests are Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, former Shadow Attorney General and author of On Liberty and Of Women, and the Director of the AI & Geopolitics Institute at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge Verity Harding and award-winning senior reporter, author, and host of climate podcast Zero Akshat Rathi.They talk to Bronwen Maddox, CEO of think tank Chatham House.

Every morning for the past decade, award-winning writer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks. His new collection, Let the Light Pour In, brings together the best of these poems, which chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Sissay introduces the collection, performing works from it in this life-affirming event. His memoir My Name is Why was a bestseller and his Landmark poems are visible in London, Manchester, Huddersfield and Addis Ababa.

For a long time, contemporary Latin American literature has been pigeonholed as being only the magical-realist novel. But this is no longer the case. Modern works of Latin American fiction are being seen for the ways in which they respond to global concerns with forensic insight and precision, and imagine new possibilities with the fantastic resources of its peoples and landscapes. Authors are exploring different media and genres, and the works may be written anywhere, from Bogotá to London or New York.

Join Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, editor of the WritersMosaic guest edition The Forensic and the Fantastic: Latinx Writers in the UK, together with writers Gaby Sambucetti, Juan Toledo and Erna von der Walde for a moving journey through the new Latinx literary landscape.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye, discussing the impact of the climate emergency on national parks.

Hay-on-Wye is based 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.

One growing elephant. One smallish lifeboat. One big dream… Join award-winning author/illustrator Ed Vere for a salty story-time session celebrating his new picture book The Elephant and the Sea – a lyrical tale about big elephants in small boats, large waves… and big pinches of bravery and determination. Ed will bring his crayons to show you how to draw his character Gabriel. You can join in with him and see how easy it is to draw a seafaring elephant! Ed’s award-winning picture books include How to be a Lion and Max the Brave.

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

Dive into this interactive quiz-tastic, puzzling mystery event for code-cracking families and skilful young super sleuths. Hartigan Browne is arguably Britain’s greatest detective, having solved hundreds of complex crimes including robberies, murders, accidental deaths, fraud and at least one case of handling a salmon suspiciously. Hartigan’s success, however, means he is now overwhelmed with people requiring his help, and he can’t keep up with the demand for his services. A great believer that everyone has a brilliant mind, Hartigan is keen to mentor those who have the perseverance, resilience and curiosity required to join the Hartigan Browne Detective Agency. Join us to see if you have what it takes to work out this brain teasing cluedunnit?

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.

Come to Hay Castle for this drop-in session for families, where you’ll be inspired to design and build your own dream house out of recycled materials.

Children must be accompanied by an adult. Activities are aimed at children aged 4+ years, but younger siblings are very welcome.

Discover how to make your garden successful, whatever your abilities, and how to combine colours and pots for instant impact, from gardeners Sue Kent and Sarah Raven. Gardeners’ World presenter Kent is an RHS disability ambassador and RHS award-winning garden designer. Her book Sue Kent Garden Notes provides tips and tricks to successful gardening for all abilities. Gardener, cook and podcaster Sarah Raven’s A Year Full of Pots: Container Flowers for All Seasons demonstrates how accessible and satisfying growing flowers in pots can be.

Two of the best young British novelists of 2023, as selected by Granta magazine, discuss their recent books. Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience is about a woman who moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her ancestors, to be housekeeper to her recently divorced brother. There, a strange series of unfortunate events begin to occur and she is put under suspicion by the locals. Eley Williams’ Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good is a new collection of stories from the award-winning author of The Liar’s Dictionary and Attrib. and Other Stories. The stories explore uncertainty and how we grapple with it, as well as misunderstandings and confusions in a world that appears bound by rules and codes, both spoken and unspoken. The authors speak to writer Max Liu.

Can the peace efforts of ordinary citizens impact a world engulfed in war? One hundred years ago the women of Wales dared to imagine a world without war and took steps to achieve it: nearly 400,000 signed a petition appealing to the women of America to support their call for peace. Join Mererid Hopwood and Jenny Mathers, editors of Yr Apêl/The Appeal 1923–24, as they discuss the remarkable story of the Welsh Women’s Peace Petition with Welsh journalist Betsan Powys, and seek inspiration for a new generation of peacemakers.

Join Baillie Gifford Prize Director Toby Mundy and last year’s Prize winner John Vaillant for a special Hay Festival edition of the Read Smart podcast, recorded live. Together with a line-up of special guests, they explore crucial topics often overshadowed by mainstream news. While the media fixates on one monolithic story after another – Brexit, COVID, Ukraine, Gaza – what vital news remains overlooked elsewhere? During the event we’ll gather suggestions from speakers and the audience. The most compelling ideas will shape a future episode of the Read Smart podcast.