Mark Edwards chats to Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch about Hay Festival 2024

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Wednesday, 27 March 2024 - 8 minutes

Mark Edwards chats to Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch all about this years amazing line up and what we can expect at this years festival. With even more exciting celebrity authors, tv and film stars and political figures. There is so much to enjoy this year, Julie tells Mark just what makes Hay Festival so unique.

Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye 2024 programme revealed, offering a world of different ideas .

Headline artists include authors Amor Towles, Ayọbámi Adébáyọ, Colm Tóibín, Cressida 
Cowell, David Mitchell, Jeff Kinney, Jhumpa Lahiri, David Nicholls, Elif Shafak, Holly 
Jackson, Alex Wharton, Jacqueline Wilson, Sunjeev Sahota, Manon Steffan Ros, Marian 
Keyes, Michael Morpurgo and Oliver Jeffers; historians Alice Roberts, Greg Jenner and 
Tom Holland; politicians Theresa May, Andy Burnham, Julia Gillard and Rory Stewart; 
musicians Bonnie Tyler, Charlotte Church, Geri Halliwell-Horner, James Blunt, Jools 
Holland, Robert Macfarlane and Johnny Flynn; journalists James O’Brien, Caitlin Moran 
and Elizabeth Day; footballer and broadcaster Gary Lineker; actors Dame Judi Dench, 
Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Fry, Sir Lenny Henry and Toby Jones; artist Es Devlin; poets 
Hanan Issa, Simon Armitage, Jackie Kay, Lemn Sissay, Hollie McNish, Michael Rosen 
and Joseph Coelho; comedians Jon Richardson, Nish Kumar, Julian Clary, Ruby Wax 
and Sara Pascoe; Nobel Prize-winning activist Maria Ressa; and many more…  

Hay Festival Global has unveiled the full programme for its 37th spring edition in Hay-on
Wye, with more than 600 in-person events over 11 days, 23 May–2 June 2024.  

Tickets and info can be found at: www.hayfestival.com/hay-on-wye/home

Launching the best new fiction and non-fiction, while offering insights and debate around 
significant global issues, the programme sees writers, policy makers, pioneers and 
innovators take part from around the world, offering big thinking and bold ideas.  
Events offer something for all, beginning with the free schools programme, 23–24 May, 
and including a vibrant strand for families throughout.  

New projects woven across the Festival include The Platform for new creatives, the daily 
News Review offering analysis of the latest events, the first-ever Hay Festival Sports 
Day, and Hay Festival Green, prompting innovative solutions to the climate crisis. 
Late nights at the Festival are given over to great music, comedy and entertainment, 
while a host of free pop-up activities and performances around the site keeps audience 
entertained between sessions.  

Events will take place across eight stages in the redesigned free-to-enter Festival site at 
Dairy Meadows – which also offers a range of spaces for audiences to explore and enjoy, 
including the Bookshop, Wild Garden, Make & Take Tent, a host of exhibitors and market 
stalls, cafés and restaurants, and the new Family Garden where young readers can kick
start their creative journeys – as well as in and around Hay-on-Wye, including 
performances all week at St Mary’s Church.  

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