Science Festival 2025 is over, another full week of diverse entertaining, surprising, challenging and informative topics. Our thanks go out to Otley Courthouse and all the presenters and helpers that made it possible.
Here’s a small sample of the action:
So on to 2026…
We’re there!
Kicking off on Sunday 9th November Otley Science Festival 2025 is going to be another great week with something for everyone. We begin with with an exciting daytime family friendly show then run through the week with a range of evening events, a Friday matinee and the popular Science Fair on the final Saturday plus daytime schools events for KS1 and KS2 students and a supporting art exhibition running alongside.
Here’s what happening:
You can find all the details here on the Festival 2025 page
On the other hand if you would like to jump straight to a page where you can buy tickets for the shows you can find it here.
That was the summer (June) Science Café, but we can’t stop looking forwards to these coming autumnal days…
There will be another Science Café on 11th September and then it’s on to Science Festival week, November 9th – 15th. Our programme is now sorted and you’ll find the full details for the schools programme (for KS1 and KS2) here and for the rest of the Science Festival week (in full very shortly) here.
Keep in touch!
Not long now to our next Science Café, which will be on Thursday 26th at 7.30pm.
The evening’s diversity of topics are:
Full details are here on the Science Café page
Into 2025, here’s our first Science Café – Thursday 27th March, 7.30pm at Otley Courthouse
Full details are here, on the Science Cafés page
We’re off with planning for this year’s Science Festival, so you can put the dates in your diary. We’re planning to begin with a family show on Sunday 9th November and close out with the Fair and our last speaker on Saturday 15th. In between will be our usual enticing selection of science based events and daytime schools shows for KS1 and KS2 pupils.
Full details will follow in due course.
Plus, of course, in the meantime there will be our regular Science Cafés currently scheduled for March 27th and June 26th, with one to follow in September, date tbc.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
We made a decision in mid ’24 that it felt right for us to join the X-odus, at some time after the Science Festival. So that is what we are doing.
If you’ve been following us on X, thank you for your past support, but for ’25 would you please switch to join us on any (or all) of the usual suspect alternatives.
You can also now find us under the “otleyscience” identity on Bluesky, Threads, Instagram and continuing as we have long been on Facebook. Plus, of course, here.
Our final Tweet/post is on January 3rd and (in case you miss(ed) it) reads:
“That’s it, we’re off. It’s been great but sadly we no longer feel comfortable sharing this space, as we are and always will be advocates for the enjoyment of truth and understanding through science. We hope you may join us where we are seeking a more welcoming home.”
We look forward to seeing you wherever suits you best.
Besides that, all the very best for 2025.
Another great range of events and a really popular Fair day. Thanks as ever to our presenters, stall holders and volunteers who made it possible. And, of course, thanks to everyone who came to join us. Here’s a small look back at some of the activities:
Lastly, I’m going to pick out one chart from Friday’s presentation “When Antarctica Was Green” by Dame Professor Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey. It shows the results of using ice cores to directly see CO2 levels over the last 800,000 years (well beyond the arrival of homo sapiens).
At no time over those years was CO2 above 300ppm. It is now 422ppm. She said that in the past, when it was above 400ppm sea levels were 5-10m higher than they are now…
You can find more photos from this year and from past Festivals on our Flickr group at https://flic.kr/g/gvMsL
With the September Science Café behind us it’s now on the Festival 2024!
As a new departure we’re kicking off on a Sunday, November 10th, with a family Science Show in the afternoon and then the return of our Science Film, the 1951 classic “The Day The Earth Stood Still”
After that we have the usual busy week of daytime schools shows and evening sessions, a Friday matinée show and the ever popular Science Fair on Saturday 16th.
In quick summary this is what’s on offer (schools show details here):
The full information on all of these events and ticket links can, of course, be found on the Science Festival 2024 page.
Otley Science Festival 