I’ve just returned from a fabulous week at the Hay Festival. It was my first time there and I really don’t know why it took me so long to actually get there. As it was my first time I wasn’t too sure of what to expect and so in case you’re planning to go next year I thought I’d write this Hay Festival survival guide whilst everything is still fresh in my mind.
Where is the Hay Festival?
The Hay Festival is to be found in Hay-on-Wye which is a small town sitting just on the Welsh side of the border between England and Wales.
What is the Hay Festival?
The Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, to give it its full name, is an annual massive literary festival. It runs for ten days from the end of May into June each year. The festival was held for the first time in 1988 and has gone from being held in the backroom of the British Legion and a tent in a pub garden to the huge site it covers today. It’s now one of the best known festivals of culture in Britain and is probably the best known literary festival in the world. About 2,000 people attended the first festival; now it’s more like 250,000.
How can I get tickets?
Hay isn’t the kind of festival where you buy one ticket and this covers you for everything. Instead you choose the events you’d like to attend and then buy tickets for those events. Access to the actual site is free and so even without any tickets you can wander in and out and enjoy the vibe or try some of the amazing food that’s on sale.
You can buy your tickets from the Hay Festival website. The tickets went on sale from March this year and the popular events sell out fast so be sure to be monitoring the site to make sure you get in quickly.
If you haven’t been able to get a ticket for a particular event, or if you just want to turn up and see what’s available, there is a box office on the festival site. This sells returns as well as tickets for events that haven’t sold out and so you may get lucky. I heard one guy saying, as I queued to get into Billy Bragg’s talk, that he’d been going to the box office for the past three days to try to get a ticket and he was finally able to get a return that morning.
Ticket prices are generally £8-10, but some events are free and some are more expensive.
How do I get to Hay?
The easiest way to get to Hay is by driving, especially if you’re carrying camping gear or planning to buy lots of books. The campsite I stayed at had plenty of space for vehicles and close to the festival site several fields have been turned into big temporary car parks. These car parks cost £3-4 a day and are 5-10 minutes walk from the site.
If you don’t want to drive then you could get the train to the nearest big town with a station which is Hereford (21 miles away) and then take the bus from there. Extra buses run during the time of the festival, including a special festival bus service which actually starts in Worcester and runs via Bromyard to Hereford and then on to Hay. If getting the festival bus you can buy your ticket from the driver using either cash or contactless.
This year festival bus tickets cost £7.50 single and £10 return from Hereford and £10 single and £15 return from Worcester. Children travel for half price. Buses run roughly every 60-90 minutes from Hereford and less frequently from Worcester. Nearer the time download an up-to-date timetable from the festival website. There is also a scheduled bus service between Brecon and Hay.
If you are staying in the town of Hay and don’t want to walk to the festival site each day there is a regular shuttle bus running from the town centre to the site which costs £2 per day.
If you stay in a nearby village you can drive into Hay each day and use one of the car parks near the site. Alternatively you may be able to use the village shuttle bus which runs during the festival. Check the website to see which villages it calls at.
Where can I stay?
Accommodation in Hay gets booked out well in advance of the festival, so if you want to stay in a B&B or rent a cottage in the town you need to organise it early. If you don’t mind staying outside of the town and commuting in each day, there are plenty of gorgeous villages in this part of the Wye Valley where you should be able to find somewhere. The cheapest and easiest option (to me at least) is to camp.
A couple of campsites are set up specially for the event. I stayed at Tangerine Fields campsite which is just over the bridge and close to the town. The literature claims it’s a 15 minute walk to the festival site, but I found it took longer than that and by the time I added in queuing at security to get my bag checked and navigating the huge site to find the venue for my event then I needed to allow at least half an hour.
The campsite itself was fine. The field was flat and the toilets and showers were clean, decent and I never had to queue. There was also a place set up with hairdryers, straighteners and mirrors and an on-site cafe selling breakfast in the mornings and pizzas in the evenings.
The only downside was that were no recycling facilities, just one huge skip for all rubbish to be chucked in together.
Closer to the festival site is Gypsy Castle Camping. This is smaller and was more expensive. Their bumpf claims it’s only a couple of minutes from the festival site, but I did hear someone complaining that it was further away than that. I never actually saw it so I have no idea how much further.
NB: The Gypsy Castle website says prices are per person but there’s a minimum of 2 people per pitch, so if you’re a solo traveller this is not the place for you unless you don’t mind paying for 2 people!
How easy is it to get to the festival site?
It’s about a 15 minute walk from town. There are several car parks along the route which cut the walk down to 5 or 10 minutes depending on which one you choose. It’s quite fun to walk along the Brecon Road though because lots of people have stalls in their front gardens selling second-hand items or crafts, usually for charity. There are even some tea gardens and one cider garden.
If you don’t want to walk from town there is shuttle bus running regularly to and from the site for £2 a day.
What is the food like?
The food is wonderful. There’s a whole food hall with stalls selling lots of different types of food – curry, Mexican, Polish pierogies, pizza, tofu burgers, as well as sandwiches and pastries. Expect to pay £7-10 for a dish. The portions are generous and it really is good food. There is plenty of seating, but at busy times the area can get quite full. I found it easy to get somewhere to sit on my own, but if there’s a group of you wanting to sit together try to time it when it’s less busy.
If you don’t try any of the other food, the one thing you have to try is Shepherd’s ice cream. The original shop is in town, but there are a couple of stalls at the festival site. The ice cream is made from sheep milk which is apparently lower in fat and higher in vitamins than cow’s milk ice cream. It tastes really creamy and as well as the usual flavours they have some you probably haven’t come across before. My favourite was Lebanese coffee spiced with cardamon and I also liked the sesame and honey flavour.
How many events should I go to?
There are SO many events you’re sure to find plenty you want to see and will likely have to make some difficult choices when events clash.
However, I’d recommend you don’t completely book out your time. It can get quite overwhelming if you attend several events one after the other and you’ll want some time to digest what you’ve seen. It’s also nice to spend time exploring the site and just enjoying being there. And of course, you really should allow time to explore the town and the surrounding area.
What else is there to do at the festival site?
If the weather is nice you can sit outside on the colourful deckchairs and watch the world go by (or bury your head in one of your new book purchases and completely ignore the world).
As I’ve already mentioned the food hall is pretty amazing and you could spend a week working your way round the stalls and not have time to try everything. As well as the food stalls there’s also a coffee shop and bar where you could easily pass some downtime.
The on-site bookshop sells books by authors who are speaking as well as books about the local area. It’s great for browsing and is also where authors go to do book-signings after their talks. Be warned that the queues for signings can be huge. If you aren’t near the front and you have another event booked you might not have time to wait. After attending Billy Bragg’s talk I wanted to buy his book and get it signed, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to wait as I only had half an hour until my next event. I went to my next event and well over an hour later returned to the bookshop and Billy was still there signing away. The queue was a lot shorter by this time so I joined it and got a signed book and a photo.
As well as a bookshop, the site also has a small shop selling festival souvenirs and a marketplace with stalls selling everything from gin to clothing, chocolate to wood carvings and lavender products to African safaris. And if new books aren’t your thing, Oxfam have a large second-hand book stall here.
One of my favourite spots at the site this year was the Serious Reading Room. I think this was something new and I really hope it wasn’t a one-off. The Serious Reading Room is a quiet tent with comfy chairs, good lighting, bowls of pot pourri and cushions. The sides of the tent are decorated to look like white brickwork or dark panelling with bookshelves filled with books. As soon as you enter you get a feeling of tranquility. The room might be quite full, but everyone is sat with their head in a book quietly reading. At a few times during the day an author stands at a podium and does a ten minute reading, but other than that the space is silent. For me, this was the perfect place to come to chill and have a bit of downtime.
If you have children with you, as well as child-appropriate talks, there are also other activities such as crafts, art and cooking they can do.
Is it environmentally friendly?
The festival is making an effort to be environmentally friendly. There are water stations around the site where you can fill your own water bottles and a reusable coffee cup scheme is in operation. You can pay £1 deposit for a reusable cup that you can take back to one of several stands and get your £1 refunded. The cup is washed and reused. You are also encouraged to carry your own reusable mug and can get a discount for using it.
The food stalls have been encouraged to use non-plastic containers and cutlery and there are plenty of clearly labelled recycling bins around the site.
The programme was sent to me in the post just before the festival. It’s quite a thick book and is nice to have as a souvenir. However, I wasn’t expecting it and would have been happy with a digital version. Apparently the programme was a lot thicker – more pages and thicker paper – this year than in previous years and so seems to contradict their efforts to be environmentally friendly.
What are the loos like?
There are toilets blocks in several areas and although the queues can get quite long for the ladies at busy times (as usual, there’s never a queue for the men’s) they do move quickly. The toilets are clean and have toilet paper, soap and paper towels.
Should I spend all my time at the festival site?
No, is the short answer. The festival is wonderful, but so is the town and surrounding area. You’re in what is probably the world’s most famous book town and as you’re attending a literary festival I’m going to assume you like books. Why on earth wouldn’t you want to spend time browsing your way through all the second-hand bookshops?
The Wye Valley is beautiful too, so you should really try to have a bit of time to get out exploring. I spent most of a day driving along Wales’s highest road, the Gospel Pass. It’s narrow and single track in a lot of places so involved having to do quite a bit of reversing when I met oncoming vehicles.
I stopped in Capel-y-ffyn where there’s an old chapel and remains of a castle, saw Hay Bluff (but didn’t climb it as it was a bit misty on my way past – on my way back it was clearer, but I didn’t have time), visited a ruined priory at Llanthony and found a standing stone. Add in loads of fantastic views and this was a great day trip to do.
Have you been to the Hay Festival? Would you like to? Have I answered all your questions? What have I forgotten to include in my Hay Festival Survival Guide? Share your thoughts and ask your questions in the comments below.
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