Hay Festival invites young creatives to showcase work at flagship event

Hay Festival has made an open call for young creatives to showcase their work at the flagship event in Wales this May.

Launched in 2024, Hay Festival’s The Platform is an initiative to promote, support and develop the talent of creatives aged 21 – 28.

The Platform is open to creatives in a range of art forms, including performance (theatre, dance, street), poetry, digital art, film, audio, visual art and literature, aiming to offer new routes into the arts.

Successful artists will have the chance to share their work with Festival audiences on Friday 29 May around the Festival site.

They will also meet and network with established artists over a three-day, all-expenses-paid visit to the festival, as well as receiving an event fee for their work.

Last year’s participants included visual poet and producer Alfiah Jade Brown, storyteller Alexis Maxwell, writer, actor, producer Grace O’Brien, writer, theatremaker and visual artist Eden Peppercorn, and writer and performer Safiyah Zanabi.

Eden Peppercorn said: “The Platform has been a truly singular opportunity to showcase my work on a world-class stage. It has empowered me in my own creative practice.

“It’s a very rare opportunity in an increasingly expensive artistic landscape that has been eminently valuable to me developing my artistic career.”

Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch said: “Hay Festival Global is a charity built on creative collaborations. We are excited to issue our call for submissions to The Platform 2026 – a special project designed to support young artists in building connections, on stage and off, showcasing their work to our Festival audience while facilitating creative collaborations with established artists.

“We cannot wait to see what this next generation of artists has in store for us!”

Artists can find out more about the programme and submit their ideas via The Platform’s site here before the deadline at midday on Friday 10 April.

This year’s Hay Festival is its 39th spring edition in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, with more than 600 events over 11 days from 21 – 31 May 2026.

Launching the best new fiction and non-fiction books, while sharing insights around global issues, the programme includes artists, policymakers, pioneers and innovators from around the world.

More information will be available about this year’s programme through the Hay Festival’s site from 9 March.

The Platform is funded by D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust and The Garrick Charitable Trust.