Hay Festival Winter Weekend closed Sunday 1 December after festivalgoers enjoyed events in and around the booktown of Hay-on-Wye with more than 11,000 tickets sold, up 10% on the previous year.
Over four days, more than 70 acclaimed artists took part in over 60 events, launching the best new fiction and non-fiction, exploring creative solutions to some of the biggest challenges of our time, and spreading festive joy in conversations, reflecting on 2024 and looking forward to 2025, candle-lit storytelling, comedy, music, and workshops.
Bestselling books were:
1. Cerys Matthews’ Under Milk Wood by Cerys Matthews
2. Comfort Eating by Grace Dent
3. Drawn to the Garden by Caroline Quentin
4. Now What? by Carol Vorderman
5. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
6. How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill
7. Boy from the Valleys by Luke Evans
8. Art of Uncertainty by David Spiegelhalter
9. Gliff by Ali Smith
10. Eight Weeks by Lola Young
Hay Festival Global CEO Julie Finch said:
“New ideas, joy and hope – what better ingredients for a year-end festival to wrap one year and help us spring into the next? Hay Festival Winter Weekend 2024 showcased a world of different experiences, sharing a heady dose of entertainment alongside some bold visions for the future. With numbers up on last year, it was another reminder of the special place in our cultural lives that festivals hold – rare spaces for the open exchange of different viewpoints and ideas that must be treasured and celebrated. Thank you to the artists, audiences, supporters and funders who made it all possible.”
Guests included novelists Ali Smith and Paula Hawkins; actors Rupert Everett, Paterson Joseph and Luke Evans; broadcaster and campaigner Carol Vorderman; former Australian PM Julia Gillard; statistician David Spiegelhalter; classicist Natalie Haynes; poet Theresa Lola; Uncanny host Danny Robins; foreign policy specialist Chloe Dalton; comedians Russell Kane and Vic Reeves; broadcaster Cerys Matthews; musician Arun Ghosh; supervet Noel Fitzpatrick; and historians Sarah Clegg and Jonathan Dimbleby.
Events took place in a specially built 350-seater marquee in the grounds of Hay Castle, in the Castle’s Clore workshop space, plus venues around town, including St Mary’s Church, The Poetry Bookshop, and North Books.
The Festival’s bookshop, open daily from 9am, stocked featured titles and gifts, plus hosted regular book signings and a special display from Festival partner Visit Seattle.
Part-funded by the UK Government via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Festival weekend saw the Welsh booktown’s independent shops, cafés and markets offer a warm welcome to Festivalgoers within the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.
Digital media partner TikTok supported Hay Festival Winter Weekend for the first time, hosting some of the UK’s top creators while supporting development opportunities for young creatives within the team.
Select events were livestreamed to audiences around the world through the Festival’s online pass, plus free to libraries nationwide via the British Library’s Living Knowledge Network.
Great storytelling majored in the programme as novelist Ali Smith presented Gliff; Wales Book of the Year winner Alex McCarthy talked The Unbroken Beauty of Rosalind Bone; and Paula Hawkins offered The Blue Hour; while poet Theresa Lola shared her new collection, Ceremony for the Nameless; Glyn Edwards offered In Orbit, actor Rupert Everett shared his first ever collection of stories, The American No; and broadcaster Danny Robins shared Into the Uncanny.
Following a year of elections and global upheavals, Wales today and the role of Britain in the wider world came into focus in conversations with campaigner Carol Vorderman (Now What?: On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain), former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Baroness Lola Young, and actor Paterson Joseph; while an expert panel explored the year ahead in the Festival’s 2025 visions discussion.
Big ideas took centre-stage as new thinking came to the fore in conversations with statistician David Spiegelhalter (The Art of Uncertainty), Tom Chatfield (Wise Animals), Dr Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston (The Future Loves You) and astrophysicist Chris Lintott (Our Accidental Universe); inspiring life stories marked the year’s end with hope as Shaparak Khorsandi talked Scatter Brain and Jordan Stephens presented Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dogs; and the BBC hosted a free live recording of their popular Inside Science.
After another transformative 12 months at Hay Festival Global, CEO Julie Finch joined Director of TATE Maria Balshaw and surprise guest Sir Chris Bryant MP for a conversation on the future of the arts, chaired by BBC Media Editor Katie Razzall.
History and myth were reimagined with historian George Nash on Neolithic Tombs of Wales; Jonathan Dimbleby on Endgame 1944: How Stalin won the War; and classicist Natalie Haynes on Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth.
The natural world was explored and celebrated in conversations with actor and broadcaster Caroline Quentin (Drawn to the Garden); writer Tom Bullough (Sarn Helen); Tom Mustill (How to Speak Whale); Chloe Dalton (Raising Hare) and Noel Fitzpatrick (Dogs and Their Humans).
There was seasonal joy and inspiration to be enjoyed with comedian Jenny Eclair on Jokes, Jokes, Jokes: My Very Funny Memoir; broadcaster Kevin McCloud on 25 years of Grand Designs; actor Luke Evans with Boy From the Valleys: My Unexpected Journey; food writer Grace Dent on Comfort Eating; and Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) joined Nancy Moir to share their new art book, Painting Birds.
Families enjoyed a wide mix of activities including Russell Kane on Pet Selector!: A hilarious guide to all the usual and unusual household pets, while Hay Castle hosted a special illustration exhibition on Sir Quentin Blake.
Music rang out across the Festival weekend as performances in St Mary’s Church included cellist Maxim Calver and Father Richard with his silent film performance; plus Hay Shantymen, The Nonsense Singers, Cantorian Y Gelli, and the Hay Community Choir entertained Festivalgoers with a series of pop-up sets around town; broadcaster Cerys Matthews revisited the beloved fictional world of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood in a session of storytelling and music alongside jazz musician Arun Ghosh; while historian Sarah Clegg explored the dark side of Christmas in a special event on The Dead of Winter: The Demons, Witches and Ghosts of Christmas accompanied by Blackthorn Ritualistic Folk and John Kirkpatrick.
Extra sparkle to live events came from the town’s Market Square as actor and singer Luke Evans switched on the Christmas lights, Friday 29 November, in what has become an annual Winter Weekend highlight.
And the Festival drew on public nominations to crown the Hay Festival Book of the Year to Chloe Dalton’s Raising Hare, following past wins for Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead, Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry, Deborah Levy’s Real Estate, Dara McAnulty’s Diary of a Young Naturalist, Hallie Rubenhold’s The Five, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s Inventing Ourselves and Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words.
Enjoy highlights now on Hay Festival Anytime at hayfestival.org/anytime.
