Hay Festival Families
Connect with your favourite writers, discover fresh voices, learn new skills and hang out in the Family Garden – exploring, reading, playing.
Hay Festival Families is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and receives financial assistance from The Elmley Foundation.
Enjoy exciting events
You can see and hear loads of the best authors, poets and illustrators in our programme full of fun and creative events for young people of all ages.
Learn a new skill, come to a workshop
Get involved and express your creativity by trying something new at Hay Festival. Workshops range from cartooning to food appreciation, music, illustration and creative writing.
Join in one of Kitchen Garden Pizza’s daily masterclasses in which imaginations and creativity will be fed alongside bellies. You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, making and topping your own dough and observing the pizzaioli at work.
Craft at the Make & Take Hub
The Make & Take Hub on site offers an opportunity to get crafting! There are three Make & Take crafting sessions each day, for children aged 3–11 years. Activities and themes differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only limit.
Sessions must be booked in advance, and you can drop in at any point during the session. An accompanying adult must attend at all times but does not need a ticket.
The Make & Take 2025 sessions are supported by The Rivers Trust
Book for a 2025 Make & Take Crafting Session
Get active on Sports Day
Sports Day returns to the Festival! Try out a range of activities on Wednesday 28 May in free drop-in sessions across the site.
Find out more about Sports Day.
Creative Industry Insights
Calling all young adults – we’ve got a great programme for 14–25-year-olds, with workshops from inspiring creative industry producers and practitioners. Hear their insights, experience and advice on progression in the field, and get stuck in yourself.
View the programme and filter by YA.
Families at the Festival
We want to make everyone’s visit to the Festival easy and enjoyable – find out more about accessibility at the Festival.
Hay Festival Bookshop has a large Children’s and YA section for easy browsing, and all caterers on site offer child-friendly portions.
Explore our Family Garden
Enjoy our dedicated family area with its own garden offering a playful space to enjoy and explore. You’ll find dedicated food outlets and exhibitors, a buggy park, family-friendly toilets and a space for baby changing and feeding. The Family Garden hosts the children’s event venues as well as the much-loved Make & Take Hub.
Watch pop-up performances
Catch Hereford College of Arts students performing some mini-Shakespeare in the Bookshop Garden on Tuesday 27 May, and music and art students from Kidderminster College performing with puppets and music on Thursday 29 May.
Follow the scavenger trail
Are you ready to solve the biggest riddle of the year? Join Caspia and unlock the secrets of the Green Kingdom in a scavenger hunt inspired by Cornelia Funke’s upcoming novel! The chance to win a fantastic prize awaits all the Green Kingdom fans who figure it out…
Bring a sketchbook
In some events you’ll be encouraged to draw along: please bring a sketchbook and pencils or pens along with you, or buy some from the Hay Festival Shop. We’d love to see your artwork – post it on socials @hayfestival.
Safety on site
Please note that visitors to Hay Festival may be filmed and/or photographed for future promotions of the Festival.
Age guidance
Adults, please accompany children aged 11 and under at all times including during events, unless otherwise stated. For workshops you’ll find age guidance as below listed on individual events.
0–8 years parents/carers must be in attendance but don’t usually need to buy a ticket.
9–11 years parents/carers may attend or sign children in/out.
12+ years neither parent/carer attendance nor sign in/out is required.
Suitability
There are no age restrictions, although events after 9pm may not be suitable for under 12s. Comedy performances may not be suitable for under 16s.
Missing children
Let your children know that if they get lost they can go to the Make & Take Hub. It’s open 10am–4pm from Saturday 24 May to the end of the Festival (closing at 1.30pm on Sunday 1 June). Outside these hours you should head to the Festival Admin Office, near the main entrance, where a member of our team will reunite you.