Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye

For eleven days each spring, a small Welsh market town becomes the most quoted literary stage in the English-speaking world. Hay is where prime ministers, Booker winners, climate scientists, and stand-up comedians share a tent and an audience, drawing 250,000 visitors to a programme of nearly 600 events. The festival's combination of bookish prestige and field-of-flags charm makes it the single most photographed literary event in the UK calendar, and its commissioned conversations routinely set the agenda for the autumn publishing season.