Great Exhibition Road Festival impresses thousands

Early evaluation figures show that flourishing festival is a hit with visitors!

It’s been a month since Imperial College London’s South Kensington campus and surrounding areas were transformed into a vibrant hub of science and arts activity for the annual Great Exhibition Road Festival.  

Across 15 and 16 June, over 50,000 people soaked up the lively atmosphere, enjoying hundreds of interactive exhibits, music and dance performances, creative workshops, and informative talks – with a record-breaking number of people registering to attend the Festival in 2024.

Vicky Brightman, Director of Public Engagement at Imperial and Festival Director, said: “The Festival is a flagship event in Imperial’s calendar and one we are hugely proud of. It’s a lively and inclusive space that celebrates a diverse array of creative and scientific ideas, forging connections and exchanging knowledge. It would not be possible without the vision and hard work of the hundreds of people that make it happen - from our partnering institutions like the Science Museum and Royal Albert Hall, to the staff and students across Imperial who volunteer their time to host exhibits, deliver talks, and warmly welcome the public across the weekend.”

Variety impresses visitors of all ages 

According to the visitor evaluation survey, the Great Exhibition Road Festival was received extremely positively, highlighting how valued this event is for the public. 90% rated the Festival excellent or good (up from 89% in 2023), with 90% also stating they would visit again and that they would recommend the Festival to a friend (up from 88% and 89% in 2023).  

“There’s something for everybody, isn’t there? There’s lots of stalls, lots of activity […] it’s packed full of good ideas, for all people!” Festival visitor 

Visitors of all ages explored how science and the arts can help people and the planet flourish, 59% visited as a family with children, 23% as a group of adults only, and 18% explored the Festival programme on their own.  

From sampling planet-friendly foods and learning about sustainable eating with the Grantham Institute in the Future Food Zone, to creating coral hats while learning how Natural History Museum scientists help marine wildlife flourish or listening to award-winning poetry inspired by cells in the Science Cabaret, there truly was something for everyone.  

Watch our highlights video to hear what visitors to the Great Exhibition Road Festival thought first hand:  

Play video

Rewarding experience for researchers 

Visitor feedback revealed that interacting with Imperial exhibitors was a highlight, with 90% rating interactions as good/excellent (up from 86% in 2023).  

The two-way interaction offered by the Festival is one of its greatest strengths, creating an accessible environment for visitors to speak with experts and be inspired by scientific innovations happening across Imperial. It also provides the opportunity for Imperial staff and students to have engaging discussions with diverse members of the public, informing and strengthen their work.  

Seeing passion for their research projects reflected back to them was a highlight for exhibitors, with 94% of contributors to the Festival commenting that it was a rewarding and motivating experience.  

This was certainly true for Physics undergraduates, Neha Yasin and Taylor Pomfret, who ran an exhibit in the Space Zone, inspired by their third-year research project into radio astronomy. They wanted to highlight issues caused by new satellite constellations, which can interfere with radio observations of space due to transmitting frequencies interfering with radio telescopes. 

"Over the course of the weekend, we spoke to hundreds of individuals, families and aspiring scientists. We were given the chance to raise awareness of a new but rapidly growing problem in science, and to see this concern and care for the sustainability of our world shared among our audience was particularly satisfying,” commented Yasin and Pomfret.  

“We even had budding astronomers who were eager to recreate our investigation at home, which showed that the festival created the perfect environment to allow attendees and their passions to flourish."  

Creative connections 

Merging scientific and artistic ideas is one of the festival’s unique features, with research topics often explored through creative activities like Swarm Dance: the AI Silent Disco – where experts on emergent behaviour from the worlds of AI, physics and mathematics joined forces with professional dancers. 

Another collaboration is Paint Lab, a large-scale art installation that returned to the Festival for the second year. Ten Imperial research teams were paired with ten artists, who designed murals inspired by science that were then brought to life across the Festival weekend. Visitors got to see beautiful works of art being made, while also learning about scientific research through an unexpected creative lens.   

Matt Dosa, an abstract artist from North London, was paired with Dr Sara Wong from Imperial’s Department of Life Sciences who investigates the brain circuitry of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and its link to mood regulation in our daily life.  

“Taking part in Paint Lab was a fantastic experience. Sara, the scientist I was paired with, was brilliant, and taught me a lot about a subject I knew nearly nothing about,” remarked Matt, whose conversations with Sara inspired Beauty Sleep, where he depicted two sets of electrical signals in the brain: one representing a restful night’s sleep, the other a fragmented one.  

“I then found myself teaching others about [Sara’s research], like some sort of expert, as I painted the artwork that we designed together. Watching the results of nine other artistic and scientific minds coming together around me was really cool too.”

Save the date 

The Great Exhibition Road Festival will return next summer on 7-8 June 2025, with a call for contributors from Imperial to be launched in the autumn. Follow @ExRdFestival on Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) for the latest Festival news and events.  

Ahead of the Festival the Public Engagement team will run another programme of #ImperialLates from November – Imperial’s series of post-work events where visitors get the chance to interact with scientific developments during a fun, social evening. 

Much like the Festival, the Lates are only made possible by a cohort of Imperial volunteers, find out more if you’re interested in learning about volunteering at these events.