Calendar

The Otley Science Festival dates for 2026 are:

Science Cafés

  • Thursday 26th March
  • Thursday 18th June
  • Thursday 24th September
  • Thursday 12th November, Science Festival Café

Science Festival 2026

We are adopting a new approach this year with the Festival being split over two part weeks. We will have speakers, a Science Café and the popular Science Fair in November and then schools and family focussed events during British Science Week in March 2027. The dates for the November Festival will be:

  • 12th – 14th November 2026

Looking back, the Otley Science Festival dates for 2025 were:

Science Cafés

  • Thursday 27th March
  • Thursday 26th June
  • Thursday 11th September
  • Tuesday 11th November, Science Festival Week café

Science Festival 2025

  • 9th – 15th November 2025

The Otley Science Festival dates for 2024 were:

Science Cafés

  • Thursday 14th March
  • Thursday 20th June
  • Thursday 19th September
  • Festival Week – Wednesday 13th November

Science Festival 2024 Week

  • 11th – 16th November

The Otley Science Festival dates for 2023 were:

Science Cafés

  • March 17th (Friday!)
  • June 22nd (Thursday, back to normal 🙂 )
  • September 14th
  • Festival week – November 16th

Science Festival 2023 Week

  • 13th – 18th November

The Otley Science Festival dates for 2022 were:

Science Cafés

  • March 24th
  • June 16th
  • September 15th
  • November 16th, Festival week Café

Science Festival Week

  • 14th – 19th November

The Otley Science Festival dates for 2021 were:

Science Cafés

  • March 18th: on line only
  • June 17th: socially distanced in Otley Courthouse and on Zoom
  • September 16th: back to the usual Courthouse format
  • November 16th (Festival Week Café)

Science Festival Week

  • 15th – 20th November

Looking back further, the covid year Otley Science Festival dates for 2020 were:

Science Cafés

  • March 12th: successfully held
  • June 18th: unfortunately the Courthouse closure and other things conspired against us and this Café did not go ahead
  • September 17th: went ahead as an on-line event
  • November 10th: On-line Festival week Science Café

Science Festival Week

  • 9th – 14th November: On-line only events held Monday – Friday, the planned film day on Saturday had to be cancelled. The details of the event are still available here.

Back before covid the 2019 dates were:

Science Cafés

  • March 14th,
  • June 13th
  • September 26th
  • November 13th – Festival week Science Café

Science Festival Week

  • 11th – 16th November

As usual the Festival Week encompassed a full programme of evening events, sessions for pre-school children on Monday 11th and schools events on Tuesday 12th to Thursday 14th.

For the record, here’s what the 2019 Science Festival looked like.