Hey! Festival Be a founder not just a funder

Hey! Festivals are a writer-led Hard Art initiative, and we are planning to pilot three Heys! later this year as part of the Fete of Britain. But, what are Hey! festivals?

Conceived by a group of writers on the back of a meeting in Brian Eno's studio in February 2025, Hey! are pop-up, micro literary festivals which go where other festivals fear to tread.

We will be collaborative, dynamic, agile and inventive, and we plan to put an emphasis on listening to our audience. We will curate, in collaboration with local venues, half-day literary festivals which offer a line-up of both locally known and nationally known writers, reading and talking about the issues of today (climate, democracy, social justice and cultural change). We want to be receptive as much as creative. We will be asking our audiences what they want and how do they see the future or the fate of Britain. We will be offering to have their views recorded when they talk to “the Ear of Britain” and, in doing so, become part of a collaborative British ‘voice mosaic’. We will be setting up stalls where people with different views can argue and debate anything from climate to the price of cheese. We will be working with school children, community centres and open-air venues. We will bring music into the mix. We will also make ongoing partnerships and outreach with all the places we go. We plan to partner with other like-minded organisations, too. The good news is, if our 2025, Heys! go as well as planned, we want to go bigger in 2026-27, but that's another story.

Needless to say, all money raised goes to paying our writers and collaborators.

In an age where most literary festivals attract a mostly middle-class demographic, Hey! goes elsewhere. We are mobile, we are curious – and you got our Ear.

BE A FOUNDER NOT JUST A FUNDER OF HEY!

All contributors to this crowd funder will be collated, and your name will be printed and be part of our founding genesis story.