Winter Festival 2026

Saturday 21 – Sunday 22 November

Priority booking dates:

Patrons & Benefactors – Monday 7 September

Friends of the Festival – Tuesday 8 September

General sale – Friday 11 September

Winter Festival updates

With our Spring Festival behind us, we turn our attention to Winter. Once again we look forward to filling our stages over a November weekend with a line-up of literary delights that we can’t wait to share with you.

In Winter 2025, we welcomed Lyse Doucet (who has since won the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction), giants of comedy and screen John Cleese and Larry Lamb, literary legends such as Ian McEwan and Irvine Welsh, alongside political figures like Nicola Sturgeon and Lady Brenda Hale.

Our team are busy bees right now, working away to create something ambitious and entertaining for you, and we’ll be sharing more about the programme very soon. Make sure you’re subscribed to our mailing list below to be the first to hear news of our Winter line up.

Montage of authors from Winter 2025 and Spring 2026
Hugh Bonneville hands up

Become a Friend to access Priority Booking

Our Winter programme often sells out quickly, so don’t miss out on the events that you want to see. By becoming a Friend of the festival you can secure two seats at all of our best selling events before they’re available to the public.