Fungi Town invites everyone to join our joyful mushroom parade. Wonderbrass, Wales’s biggest fun-loving community brass band, will lead the parade, from the Market Square to the Castle lawn, bringing the outdoor party with a mixture of jazz, pop, ska, funk and fun. We'd love to see some fungi fancy dress or just come as yourself and get in the fungi-groove to red hot interpretation of songs you know and love. Remember mushrooms dance best in the rain!

Join Tim Kaye from Cultivating Learning and Nature for a fungi hunt. Whether you’re a curious beginner or experienced mycologist, all are welcome. Dress for the weather, wear sturdy boots and, if you have them, bring a basket, small containers, penknife and hand lens. NB: This isn't a forage for food, but a chance to get a closer look at Hay's rich fungal diversity.

Meet at the Treehouse Cafe on the other side of the Wye.

Tickets £5 from Hay Castle website

​Join James Scrivens from Coed Talylan for a practical introduction to growing your own oyster mushrooms at home. Oyster mushrooms are one of the easiest mushrooms to cultivate, making them a great place to start for beginners.

The workshop will explore several simple ways of growing oyster mushrooms using readily available materials and low-tech methods. You’ll learn the basic principles of mushroom cultivation, how to get a crop started, and some straightforward techniques you can try at home without specialist equipment. No previous mushroom-growing experience needed.

Salem Baptist Chapel, Bell Bank, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5AQ

SOLD OUT

Spend a morning playing around with collage. Using a selection of different paper materials to create super cute fungi pictures.  All materials supplied and all abilities welcome. Refreshments provided. 

Date/time: Sunday 4 October 10:30am-12pm

Location: The Oil & Oak Workshop, Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5DF

Price: £20

Booking: https://www.oilandoak.co.uk/whats-on/p/meet-make-creative-workshop-jywz8-4pchh-actw7-52b5j-y4z2b

The Puff Ball is Fungi Town's big party on Saturday night at the Globe, featuring a set from local DJ and permaculture farmer Redwood - expect highly danceable underground electronic, breaks, afro house techno vibe….

There will be plenty of drinks including mushroom cocktails available and also a live action mushroom dance to Fungi Town's signature tune, brought to you by semi-professional line dancers Johnny 'Shapes' Furze and Dave 'Shapes' Prescott (disclaimer: Johnny and Dave are not semi-professional line dancers).

Feel free to dress in your most ridiculous mushroom-inspired clothes. Feel free, also, to bring puffballs, real or improvised.

Tickets £5 from Hay Castle website 

What would a poem look like if it grew instead of being written? Mycologist and poet Nathan Smith has spent years finding out, developing forms of poetry shaped by the way fungi actually grow, branching, spreading, and reproducing without a fixed centre.

In this workshop, held fittingly in Hay’s Poetry Bookshop, Nathan introduces fungally-informed poetic structures and practices, and guides you through writing your own. No previous knowledge of fungi or poetry required. Just curiosity, and a pen and paper.

Poetry Bookshop, The Pavement, Lion Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5BU

Tickets from Hay Castle website

Saturday 3 October, 6-7pm

We're so excited to bring our unique social cinema formula to Fungi Town this October. As 99p Films, we've got an evening of breath-work, documentaries, group discussions and a feast coming right up! Roll-up to our pop-up cinema for films about mushrooms; stay for the stroganoff.

We're excited to partner with The Culturing Dish, a network of researchers, cultivators, educators and artists across England and Ireland. Openly sharing knowledge of all things related to fungi; members from The Culturing Dish will be there on the night to answer any questions with expertise.

Tickets CLICK HERE

Spend an afternoon experimenting with printing with mushrooms. We’ll learn and then use a selection of different techniques to create abstract prints of our favourite fungi. All materials supplied and all abilities welcome. Refreshments provided. 

Date/time: Saturday 3 October 1.30pm-3pm

Location: The Oil & Oak Workshop, Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5DF

Price: £20

Booking: https://www.oilandoak.co.uk/whats-on/p/meet-make-creative-workshop-jywz8-4pchh-actw7-52b5j

Join Jassy Drakulic and Lorin Von Longo-Liebenstein for an outdoor workshop on Hay Castle lawn.

Against popular belief, mushroom growing in gardens does not only work behind the house, tucked away in the shade. There are many ways to include fungi into gardens and even more good reasons to do so. Fungi play an incredibly important role in most ecosystems and including them in your garden can bring a variety of benefits to your green space that go beyond a delicious harvest. 

SOLD OUT

Come and see, smell and touch some of the incredible mushrooms, toadstools and lichens growing wild around Hay.  Bring in unusual fungi and see if our team of experts and enthusiasts can identify them.

FREE

Discover the microscopic world of soil and fungi with Hay Regenerative Soils & Soil Smiths from Soil Ecology Lab.  Bring a sample from your compost heap to look at under a microscope, identify fungal hyphae, spores and microorganisms from the soil food web. Learn about the importance of below-ground biodiversity whilst checking if your compost heap is active. Encouragement to draw what you see, feel & talk about whilst looking down the microscope to be a part of an ongoing community exhibition of soils & fungi.

Taking place in the Great Hall all weekend between 10am and 4pm

Find the perfect gift for the mushroom lover in your life in Hay Castle’s pop-up fungal emporium.

Beetle Bird Hare (ceramics)

Lizzie Harper Illustrator

Marches Mushrooms

Wild Batch Ltd (kombucha)

Mycobio (tinctures)

Tertrim Teas

The Castle gift shop will also be selling a range of mushroom merchandise for every occasion in the Great Hall.

Join Tim Kaye from Cultivating Learning and Nature for a fungal exploration of Dorstone’s churchyard.  Discover how important fungi are, find and identify as many types as possible, and play a game of Fungo!

This activity is part of the Dorstone Settlement Timeline project, based at St Faith's Church Dorstone, supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. 

St Faith's Church, Dorstone, Hereford HR3 6AW (10am-1pm) 

Free - drop in

The Castle's Columbian Printing press will be action, making fungi related letterpress prints.

Printers Graeme Hobbs and Francesca Kay  demonstrate printing, and present a  range of their own work, all with  mushroom theme.

Spend a cosy evening creating Mosaic Mushrooms. Learn the basics of mosaic making and come home with a mosaic mushroom of your own design. All materials supplied and all abilities welcome. Refreshments provided. 

Date/time: Friday 2 October 6pm-7.30pm

Location: The Oil & Oak Workshop, Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5DF

Price: £25

Booking: https://www.oilandoak.co.uk/whats-on/p/meet-make-creative-workshop-jywz8-4pchh

Join seasoned guide, Head of Nature at The Lost Gardens of Heligan, and self-declared ‘mushroom tickler’ Dan Ryan, for a family-friendly fungi hunt through the hills above Hay. Whether you’re a curious beginner or experienced mycologist, all are welcome. Dress for the weather, wear sturdy boots and, if you have them, bring a basket, small containers, penknife and hand lens.

The forage will be walking to Cusop.

NB: This isn't a forage for food, but a chance to get a closer look at Hay's rich fungal diversity, and collect specimens to display in the castle.

Tickets £5 through Hay Castle website

Lorin Von Longo-Liebenstein and Kit Ondaatje Rolls join Hay Primary School pupils for an introduction to the weird and wonderful world of fungi. From glowing mushrooms to growing mushrooms and everything in between.

Join Abi from Oil & Oak and have some fun creating your own unique Mushroom Pennant. We’ll use calico and cut out your Pennant before designing your mushroom stamp and printing it onto your pennant. You can add some tassels or fringe too!

Suitable for all abilities, no sewing experience need, all materials provided. 

Book on Oil & Oak website: www.oilandoak.co.uk/workshops

Join local writer and yeast expert Simon Poffley from The Fermentarium for a deep dive into the fizzy, flavoursome world of yeast-based drinks. Learn about the cultural journey of kombucha from Tibet to California, wrap your taste-buds around different yeast-derived items, and create your own kombucha.

Tickets £25 from Hay Castle website

Fungi Town invites everyone to join our joyful closing ceremony, the family-friendly Puff Ball parade. Wonderbrass, Wales’s biggest fun-loving community brass band, will lead the parade, from the Market Square to the Castle lawn, bringing the outdoor party with a mixture of jazz, pop, ska, funk and fun. We'd love to see some fungi fancy dress or just come as yourself and get in the fungi-groove to red hot interpretation of songs you know and love. Remember mushrooms dance best in the rain!

Join Abi from Oil & Oak and have some fun creating your own unique Mushroom Patch. Using fabric as collage, basic hand sewing techniques and fabric paint you’ll create a patch of dreams. 

Suitable for all abilities, no sewing experience need, all materials provided. 

Book on Oil & Oak website: www.oilandoak.co.uk/workshops

Join local author and forager Liz Knight from Forage Fine Foods on a masterclass to help you preserve and pickle seasonal food - including mushrooms!

Booking: Email tim@clan-cic.org

Join artist and printmaker Yuli Gates for a hands-on introduction to the art of lino printmaking — with a twist. In this workshop, you’ll learn traditional carving and printing techniques while exploring the fascinating process of creating natural printmaing inks from mushrooms, as detailed in the book and website: The Mushroom Color Atlas. 

Join James Scrivens from Coed Talylan for a hands-on workshop exploring simple, low-tech ways to grow your own mushrooms at home or in the garden. Together we’ll make cardboard spawn and learn how to cultivate oyster mushrooms – one of the easiest and most rewarding varieties to start with. Whether you’re curious about fungi, keen to grow your own food, or just want to get your hands on a practical skill, this session offers an accessible introduction to the world of mushroom cultivation.

Free Event - 10 places

Free Event but ticketed

Curious about fungi and the future of sustainable design? Join us for a hands-on Introduction to Mycelium Materials workshop, where you’ll learn the basics of working with living fungal composites. Over 90 minutes, you’ll cast a small object using mycelium—the root-like structure of fungi—which you’ll take home to incubate and finish growing.

No experience or equipment is needed—just bring yourself and a sense of curiosity! All materials are provided.

Tickets Here

Ever wondered what you would look like as a cartoon mushroom?  This is your chance to find out. Monsieur Champignon will be interpreting you as your favourite fungus. 

Find Monsieur Champignon in the Castle on Saturday

Your chance to take to the stage and show your talent with fungi-inspired music and poetry.

A quiz night sprouting with silliness! No need to be a mushroom expert - just bring your friends, your best guesses, and a sense of humour. It’s all for a good cause: entry is by donation (suggested £5), with every penny raised going to Hay Regenerative Soils CIC, helping create a carbon-neutral, community-led food system for Hay-on-Wye.

This event takes place at The Globe in Newport Street