1. Oxford@Hayfest Could your academics speak at festivals?
Maybe you have one or two media-savvy academics who already do.
Festivals can be a great way for academics to engage with the general public.
Last year 5 academics from the Department of Computer Science were accepted as speakers at the Hay Festival. They had a fantastic time and their involvement was a great publicity opportunity for the Department.
If this is something you think someone in your own department might be interested in, here’s how to do it…

2. Why are festivals good?
They count as ‘public engagement with research’ and may in some circumstances be classed as an outreach activity.
They encourage academics to communicate with ordinary people (rather than sticking within the academic community via conferences etc).
They enable a wider range of people (in terms of location, background, age etc) to access Oxford research
They are a great publicity opportunity for you and for the University as a whole!
Good for networking and boosting the reputation of the academics and the University.

3. The Hay Festival
Hay is a good festival to aim for for several reasons. It has a great reputation, it is privately run (so you only have to talk to one or two people, not negotiate with a committee), it has a lot of existing media coverage you could tap into, it is not subject specific.
How do I get my academics in??
The director of the festival is Peter Florence – he personally curates the programme of each festival. Your academics do not have to have written a book or be promoting a book to be considered.
As an initial approach, try making contact in the winter before the festival. So for Hay 2018 you should make your initial enquiry in about December However, the final selection is not made till around March, so you do have time to pitch later on.
Look at the programmes from previous years and try to pitch ideas for talks and workshops which have an academic basis but will have public appeal. Your first step should be ing a short description of each proposed talk

4. Talks and workshops Talks:
Start by thinking about any ‘star’ academics you have – the ones who already do big public lectures and engage with social media. Ask them if they would be interested in doing the festival, ask them to write a one- paragraph pitch for a public lecture idea. (Explain you can’t guarantee they will get in!).
DON”T just think of Professors though, also look at academics who may be of a lower level but are great speakers with interesting research. This year the Department of Computer Science has a current DPhil student (aged under 30) who will be giving a talk at Hay – members of the Festival team are not at all snobbish and will choose based on subject matter rather than reputation.
Pitch a few ideas in a single and be ready to come up with new ideas if the Festival is looking for speakers on a theme your department might cover.
Workshops:
Although Hay is known for big-name talks, the festival director and his team are also interested in family- or child-friendly workshops and talks, or workshops aimed at school children (let them know which age group when you pitch the idea).
Workshops we (Department of Computer Science) have run at the festival include ‘Programming for Beginners’ and ‘Build your own Quantum Computer’.

5. Unifying the Oxford presence
At large festivals such as Hay or Cheltenham there may be a number of academics from Oxford but at the current time they rarely know about each other and there is no unified attempt at University branding or publicity. We can change this.
Find out who is there and help each other share the press
Branding – make sure all academics are listed in brochures as ‘In association with the University of Oxford’
Get speakers (where possible) and certainly any support staff attending to wear branded clothing.
Use on-stage branded banners
Where possible get speakers to use branded slide templates
Take group photos if possible
We need to make it feel like the various Oxford academics taking part are doing so as members and representatives of the University, not just as a disparate group of individuals.

6. Maximise the PR
If you have managed to get one or more of your academics into a well-known festival, make the most of the publicity opportunities!
Before the event:
Social media saying how exciting it is going to be, with links to ticket booking page
During the event:
Tweet from the actual talk. Get academic to pose for some photos, especially any near big banners!
Encourage them to take part in any publicity opportunities that may have been set up by the festival organisers
We made sure that our speakers had photos taken with the HAY sign and we also made sure our pop-up banners were used on stage during each talk.

7. After the event:
Write up as an article for your own newsletter/web page.
Keep an eye on social media and share any positive Tweets that were written during/about the talk or workshop.
Pitch to the main Uni news team in case they would like to use article or photos for their web pages or social media.

8. Related ideas: Other festivals:
It may be more appropriate for your academic/s to pitch to appear at a different festival. Cheltenham runs subject specific festivals (Science, Lit etc) – you need to apply using a form on their website:
More ‘alternative’ festivals such as the Green Man Festival ( may also be worth thinking about, depending on the type of talk you are pitching and also the type of audience you would like to access.
TED talks:
These are high profile and can be on a wide variety of subjects. To be considered for a TED talk either the academic themselves or you (on their behalf) can use a nomination form here:
Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’:
For your media-savvy academics you migh want to consider taking part in a REDDIT ’Ask Me Anything’, which is a scheduled live chat event on a chosen subject or question.