The show must go on – Hay Festival 2021
Hay Festival today reveals its free digital programme for its 34th spring edition, bringing writers and readers together for an inspiring array of conversations, debates, workshops and performances online from Wednesday, May 26, to Sunday, June 6. Here, festival publicity director Christopher Bone outlines the challenges faced in organising the digital event amid the Covid-19 pandemic
AS THE spring sun rises over Hay-on-Wye this morning, a familiar buzz hangs in the air. Books are arriving by the crateload, bunting is once more being laced between the shops, and printers whir with Hay Festival programmes.
The ink is just dry on our 2021 line-up ready for release at noon today, a free digital extravaganza of conversations, performances, debate, music and laughter running from Wednesday May 26, to Sunday June 6.
Over these 12 days, more than 200 acclaimed writers, global policy makers, historians, poets, pioneers and innovators will take part online, launching the best new fiction and non-fiction, interrogating some of the biggest issues of our time, and spreading joy and inspiration with their stories.
We will be broadcasting our events from two studio spaces inside Richard Booth’s Bookshop.
While we won’t be able to fit a ticketed audience inside, our aim is to capture the unique atmosphere of live conversation with the intimacy and interactivity our digital platform provides. From Hay-on-Wye to the world, all sessions will be streamed for free at hayfestival.org/wales.
This time last year, we wouldn’t have dared dream we would get here.
Cancellation in March 2020 came at the moment of maximum financial exposure for us. We launched an urgent fundraising appeal to address our alarming situation and the response was overwhelming.
Our Haymakers, sponsors and funders gave us an opportunity to do something new – to open our festival to thousands who had never had the opportunity to attend.
To be truly global in vision and scope, and to replace isolation with connection.
Fundamentally festivals are the very opposite of social distancing, they are about togetherness and live exchange, something we’ve all missed hugely.
And they are intimately woven into the business of the creative industries: at Hay Festival in Wales, hundreds of thousands of books are sold, deals are struck in green rooms, new voices are celebrated and discoveries made.
And they are as much about the place as about the people who come – in a normal year, Hay Festival brings in more than £25m to the locality.
But despite all we have lost, we have gained something too. Covid19 has opened up new realms of accessibility for us with millions enjoying our digital events and free Programme for Schools over this past year; numbers no tent can hold.
And this year’s digital programme showcases the best a hybrid model can offer, beaming in international stars from afar, and sharing the best local talent live from our studios:
Events kick off at 8pm on Wednesday May 26, with our opening-night gala, an evening of hope as writers from around the world join with stars of stage and screen to share readings from the works that have inspired them most over the past year.
Barry-born former Australian PM Julia Gillard leads a series of conversations on democracy, Michael Sheen commemorates 100 years of Raymond Williams, Lemn Sissay offers a trio of events on racial inequality, Global Teacher Prize winner Andria Zafirakou talks education, journalist Caitlin Moran talks motherhood, Festival president Stephen Fry meets the world’s first human cyborg, artist David Hockney presents Spring Cannot Be Cancelled, COP-26 president Alok Sharma looks at what’s at stake in the climate talks, and anthropologist Heidi Larson talks vaccines.
There’s much fun to be had as household names and emerging stars share their stories.
Graham Norton launches his new book club with Marian Keyes and Richard Osman; Ali Smith presents an exclusive film inspired by her novel Summer; Welsh poets Gillian Clarke and Mererid Hopwood share their new work; Mel Giedroyc, Brit Bennett, Frank Skinner, Ethan Hawke, Jojo Moyes, Maggie Shipstead, Val McDermid, and more launch new books; and a new 10@10 series showcases new writing talent.
We celebrate an icon of Welsh culture with our inaugural Jan Morris Lecture, while the QI Elves close the Festival with an evening of trivia.
Families are in for a treat with HAYDAYS readings and performances each morning featuring some of the best-loved writers for young people including David Walliams, Cressida Cowell, Radzi Chinyanganya, Michelle Paver, Alex Wharton, Sarah Crossan and more.
Plus, our Programme for Schools will once more be beamed to pupils across the UK, offering primary and secondary pupils the chance to enjoy the festival’s programming free anywhere, May 24-28.
Our hope now, as Hay-on-Wye begins to open up, is to make the best of both worlds of live and digital. This spring is a marker and a promise for 2022.
Who knows what the world will look like then? But artists have risen to this challenge with vigour and ingenuity, finding new ways to create their masterpieces in real time that we are privileged to witness.
We are here to support them, to celebrate their work and bring people together in its celebration.
It’s been 34 years since writers and readers first started coming together in Hay Festival tents and much has changed.
What began as a party weekend in Hay to hang out and talk has been embraced around the world by tens of millions of people online and on air. But the essence of the festival has remained: storytelling.
We have never needed these stories more urgently.
So, writers, readers, thinkers and dreamers: join us.
■ Christopher Bone is Hay Festival publicity director. Hay Festival 2021 takes place online, May 26-June 6, with all events free to view.
■ The programme is released at noon today with registration open at hayfestival.org/wales.