Hay Festival 2026 aligns with the National Year of Reading
Hay Festival's 39th spring edition ran in Hay-on-Wye from 21 to 31 May 2026, with more than 500 events.
The 39th spring Hay Festival took place in Hay-on-Wye from 21 to 31 May 2026. The programme, announced in March, listed more than 500 events.
Headline names included Emma Thompson, Malala Yousafzai, Gisèle Pelicot, Dawn French and Bear Grylls, while the fiction programme included Ian McEwan, Ocean Vuong, Maggie O'Farrell, Fredrik Backman, Ali Smith and Ruth Ozeki.
New formats this year included My Life in Books events and a series of debate panels. The festival linked its programme to the UK government's National Year of Reading. Entry to the Dairy Meadows site remained free, with tickets needed for individual events.
Hay's programme is a good indication of which books publishers are putting their weight behind in a given spring. The link to the National Year of Reading is sensible: a festival that is free to enter, with a bookshop at its centre, is one of the more direct ways of bringing people who read occasionally into contact with books and the people who write them.
Sources: Nation.Cymru: Hay Festival reveals packed 2026 programme; Hay Festival: 21 to 31 May 2026.