Hay Festival 2025 opens its 38th edition
Hay Festival's 38th edition ran in Hay-on-Wye from 22 May to 1 June 2025, with more than 600 events and themes including AI and new political orders.
The 38th Hay Festival took place in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, from 22 May to 1 June 2025. The organisers announced more than 600 events and more than 600 participants over eleven days.
The festival's core themes were the impacts of artificial intelligence, health and wellbeing, new political orders and exchanges between generations. Names announced for the programme included Yulia Navalnaya, Elif Shafak, Robert Harris, Hanif Kureishi, Anne Applebaum and William Dalrymple, alongside actors, musicians, comedians and broadcasters.
New strands included a cinema programme with MUBI, a Hay Festival Green strand on climate solutions and a Debut Discoveries series for new writers. A free schools programme ran on the opening two days, entry to the festival site was free, and selected sessions were streamed online.
Hay is a reader's festival first, and its mix of writers, politicians and entertainers is part of its appeal. The debut strand is the part most relevant to new authors, since festival slots are otherwise hard to come by without an existing readership. Themes such as AI, now appearing on literary programmes as well as trade ones, also show how far the subject has moved from the industry pages into public conversation.