Tickets are now on sale for the 2026 Malvern Festival of Ideas.
The 2026 Malvern Festival of Ideas has released its programme of 16 speakers and a dedicated series of family and schools’ sessions. The Festival will run from 13 to 15 March 2026, on the theme of Social Change.
The programme can now be seen at https://www.malvernfestivalofideas.org.uk/programme/
Tickets for individual talks, day tickets for Saturday and Sunday, and Weekend tickets are now available at https://www.malvernfestivalofideas.org.uk/get-tickets/
Early bird prices will run until the end of January, but seats will go quickly: book early! All details can be found on the Malvern Festival of Ideas website: https://www.malvernfestivalofideas.org.uk/
Malvern St James School on Abbey Road, opposite Great Malvern railway station, will be the venue again, welcoming large audiences of all ages.
The main speakers are (* for newly released names):
Rob Ashman of Sea Legs Puppet Theatre*: trained at HerefordCollege of Art, and is an actor and pupetteer with Sea Legs which he founded in 2001.
Mike Berners-Lee: a professor at Lancaster University, writer and researcher on sustainability and responses to 21st century problems. He is the author of A Climate of Truth, There is No Planet B and How Bad Are Bananas? The carbon footprint of everything.
John Crace*: satirist and Guardian columnist, author of The Bonfire of the Insanities, and Taking the Lead: A Dog at Number 10.
Tom Crawford*: also known as Tom Rocks Maths, Tom is a is a mathematician teaching at the University of Oxford, a science communicator and an unapologetic maths rebel.
Danny Dorling: Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, a social geographer, author and broadcaster with powerful insights into inequality, housing, health, and education.
Lucy Eckersley: the ‘Punk Biologist’, Senior Events Officer at the Royal Society of Biology, a wild animal biologist, science presenter, and passionate advocate for making science unapologetically cool.
Reni Eddo-Lodge: award-winning British journalist and author. Her acclaimed book, Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (2017) won the Jhalak Prize in 2020. She hosts the acclaimed podcast About Race.
Ele Fountain: author of Boy 87, which won four awards, Lost, which was a Guardian Children’s Book of the Year, Fake, selected as a BookTrust Future Classic, and Wild, which was a Financial Times Best Book of the Year. Her latest novel, Storm Child, was a Times Book of the Week.
Emily Hauser: senior lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, and the author of the historical novels For the Most Beautiful, For the Winner, and For the Immortal. Her fiction and academic work challenge patriarchal readings of antiquity, offering fresh, feminist perspectives.
Will Hughes*: Malvern illustrator and cartoonist, and author of seven children’s books, including What Not to Give an Ogre for his Birthday.
April-Louise Pennant: Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Cardiff University, a scholar-activist, speaker, writer and consultant in the social sciences and humanities, on education, policy and community action.
Michael Rosen: acclaimed children’s author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic, and Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.
S F Said: an award-winning, best-selling children’s author whose stories blend myth, activism, and imagination. His first book, Varjak Paw, won the Nestlé Smarties Prize for Children’s Literature.
Adele Zeynep Walton: a British-Turkish journalist and online safety campaigner with Families and Survivors to Prevent Online Suicide Harm and Bereaved Families for Online Safety. She is the author of Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World.
Jeanette Winterson: this acclaimed author writes, teaches, and speaks on literature, technology, and the power of language to shape identity and change. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester.
Lola Young: Baroness Young of Hornsey is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, a former actor and a professor of Cultural Studies at Middlesex University. She has led initiatives on ethical fashion, modern slavery, and cultural heritage.
Festival director Andrew Webb said: ‘Our team of volunteers are thrilled that we have brought so many excellent and well-regarded speakers to inspire our audiences to take action for social change. The talks will be provoking, inspiring and entertaining, asking questions such as: What are equal opportunities for? Why do gender, race, or socioeconomic status get in the way? Will AI and automation become a threat or an advantage for society? How can we make access to education, healthcare, and resources more equitable? We look forward to welcoming you all.’
The roots of The Malvern Festival of Ideas were planted in 2012; since then, it has developed into an annual event that aims to bring together innovators, thought leaders, industry experts and local people, to think, inspire creativity, and foster discussion and debate. The Festival operates on a not-for-profit model under its parent charity, EngageMalvern and, apart from specialist and technical assistance, is entirely led by volunteers.
What’s On
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Malvern Festival of Ideas 2026
