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!
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!
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
Here’s a quick look back at some bits of this year’s festival. Thanks to everyone who helped make it happen, the Courthouse, all our excellent presenters and of course you, the people who came.
And so on to 2024, starting with our first Science Café on Thursday March 14th. You can find all our dates for the year on our calendar page here.
Another great, packed Festival week with top speakers on diverse topics (family show Ultimate Dinosaurs; When the Antarctic Was Green with the Director of the British Antarctic Survey; an exploration of Roman medicine and BBC Science presenter Adam Rutherford on Control about eugenics), another Science Quiz (with food option), a Science Café, and something different – a Friday evening introduction to cheese science, with tasting!
Plus our popular, family oriented, free Science Fair (Saturday 10-4) is bigger than ever, overflowing into the Bridge Church and Otley Library.
All the info you need in on the Festival 2023 page
We’ve been working at it for quite a while and now have confirmed another great line up for this, our 15th Science Festival.
Once again we have a set of great speakers on diverse topics, another Science Quiz (with food option), a Science Café, and something different – a Friday evening introduction to cheese science, with tasting! Plus, of course, a series of daytime schools shows.
In addition the popular Science Fair (Saturday 18th) will be bigger than ever – we have expanded into an additional venue, the nearby Bridge Church, to provide more space for activities, stalls and workshops. Not to be missed!!
You can find the full schedule here on the Festival 2023 page. As we write there are a few session details to be added, plus we’re not yet selling tickets. But watch this space and all will be complete soon 🙂
As 2021 progresses and things are looking promising we are getting on with planning a full Science Festival week for November, based on the premise that life will be reasonably back to “normal”. Of course we will keep a close watch on developments and be prepared to adapt if necessary but for now we are pushing ahead with a full week of events in Otley Courthouse for our dates of November 15th – 20th.
We already have several excellent speakers planned (details will follow as soon as we can) and, after how popular it was last year, we thought we’d go for another Science Quiz. Saturday’s Science Fair planning is under way, with a number of new ideas being explored to make it better than ever. Watch this space!
But of course you don’t have to wait until then. Unless something disappointing happens we’ll be back in Otley Courthouse on June 17th for our first in person Science Café since March 2020. This time, though, we are also learning from the last year and you’ll be able join by Zoom as an alternative, if you can’t (or don’t wish to) join us there.
You can find all the details here on the Science Café page
Wecome back!
Updated 1st November
With the news of a national lockdown coming into place on 5th November we are moving the Science Festival to be a wholly on-line event.
Fortunately we were already planning to stream all our events (with the obvious exception of Saturday’s films) so these will continue as scheduled but without any audience in the Courthouse. The films will, regrettably, be cancelled.
So, if you have not done so already, check out the schedule and join us for as many events as you can.
There is no charge for joining any event on-line, but it is necessary to book in order to receive the joining instructions. Booking will close 90 minutes before the start time.
If you have already booked to attend an event in person you will be provided details for the streamed event and your ticket cost will be refunded.
We hope this provides the information you need to be able to plan to join us with confidence. Looking forward to seeing you, if only digitally.
All the week’s details are on the Festival 2020 page
Tickets for joining on-line are available from the Otley Courthouse Science Festival page – https://otleycourthouse.org.uk/home/otley-science-festival/
Otley Science Festival 