Wednesday 27 May 2026 1:31 pm
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Wednesday 27 May 2026 1:53 pm
How The Light Gets In is a music festival specialising in philosophy and ideas
How The Light Gets In – the philosophy festival which returns to London this September – is the best of the 2026 festivals, and offers an unrivalled opportunity for human connection ★★★★★Picture the scene: Jeremy Corbyn and Reform UK’s head of policy are kicking back together in a field in Wales. Admittedly, they aren’t alone: people from as far afield as China, Brazil and Afghanistan have come to the world’s biggest philosophy festival to hear opposing voices engage in rational debate – or at least try their very best to.How The Light Gets In invites world-leading thinkers from the spheres of philosophy, science, technology, economics and politics to Hay-on-Wye to debate the most contentious topics of today. This September, the event returns to London, taking place on Hampstead Heath from 19 – 20 September.It isn’t all politics. Hundreds of people had turned up to hear one strange-sounding talk attempting to answer the question: “is water wet?”If that sounds too out there, musicians helped punters shake the existentialism. Live sets turned cerebral days into lazier evenings. Damian Lewis, the film and TV star, sang, female quintet Girl Group managed to get a load of philosophy heads moshing to their indie-pop-punk, and there were disco-infused DJs sets and late-night cabaret.The festival is rare for how it unites voices from the left and right. Set up by English philosopher Hilary Lawson, who City AM interviewed in 2024, in a whimsical field setting, his message is that it is more important than ever to listen to people with opposing views.“Most journalistic organisations can place where they are on the political spectrum, most universities have got a sense of where they think the current truth is, that’s not where we are,” Lawson tells City AM. “We are about exploring ways of making sense of the world.”Panels and Q+A take place in a variety of tents across the site, which runs along a stretch of the river WyeIf Reform UK’s controversial immigration policies brought heat, it couldn’t compete with the actual temperature, which reached 31 Celsius over the weekend. Usefully, the festival occupies a rather handsome stretch of grassland hugging the river Wye half a mile outside Hay-on-Wye, the ‘world’s first book town’, and so river swimming was an option. The town is also home to the Hay Festival, which specialises in new literature.Talks at How The Light Gets In included The End of the Great Alliance, examining European defense and featuring former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, former Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada Michael Ignatieff, and Gillian Tett, editor-at-large at the US Financial Times.“I don’t know of any other festivals where we sit down with this kind of debate,” Corbyn told City AM. “Everybody came away having learned something. Listen to what the other side says, particularly if you don’t agree with them. What I was trying to do today was challenge the globalisation theories put forward. There’s a space everywhere to have that kind of debate. Let’s have it.”At a talk entitled Patriotism, Populism and the Fate of Nations, Reform’s James Orr criticised plans for a digital ID card in light of his party’s interest in controlling immigration. “We think it’s implausible illegal migrants will be jumping off the dinghy to fill in forms for their digital ID,” he said. He was responding to Gillian Tett’s suggestion that she’d prefer her data to be Government rather than privately owned, in the hands of companies like Apple and Samsung.
