Plan your visit
What to expect at the Festival of Ideas
Get ready to join us for a day filled with enriching experiences, engaging family-friendly activities, insightful panel discussions and exhibitions!
To help you make the most of your visit, you’ll find all the essential information you’ll need to plan your day with us below.
Plan ahead
We encourage all attendees to book their sessions online well in advance and plan their day around the session timings to get the most out of the experience. By organising your day according to the session times, you can ensure that you don’t miss out on anything your sessions have to offer and more that we have planned.
Getting to campus
Our event is being held on our College Lane Campus. Here's how you can get to us:
By car:
Free parking is available at our Park and Ride car park at Angerland AL10 8HS. It is located off Junction 2 of the A1(M) on Southway (A1001) and there is a free shuttle bus to campus. There is parking available for Blue Badge holders in car park B on campus at College Lane.
By bus:
Attendees can travel for free across our UNO bus network* for the whole journey or to access our campus from Hatfield and St Albans train stations.
By train:
From Hatfield and St Albans station, buses frequently run to campus and you can take advantage of our free travel offer across our UNO bus* network.
*See FAQs below for more information.
Your questions answered
There are check-in points on campus by Main Reception and Union Square, you can find these check-in points locations labelled within the map in the programme and your pre-event emails.
You will receive your check-in QR code via email before the event. Check-in will open from 09.30 – please make sure you have your QR code ready.
Yes, the Festival of Ideas is open to all ages. We have 50+ sessions and activities taking place throughout the Festival with something for everyone. Please note, there are a couple of sessions with trigger warnings, these will be clearly labelled in the programme and signposted on the day.
You can register on the day, although we would highly recommend you pre-register. By pre-registering you will receive all the information in regard to sessions and any new bookable sessions.
We recommend planning your day in advance so that you can get the most out of your experience on campus. There will be sessions where booking is not required, please ensure you look at the programme to familiarise yourself with session timings, campus layout and locations to ensure you have time to fit everything in!
You can add and amend guests within your booking portal which can be found in your confirmation email. Please ensure you include guests when registering and book your session/s of interest to avoid missing out.
The University’s Security and Public Access Policy UPR HS05 states that ‘no dogs, other than guide or assistance dogs are permitted to access the University grounds and premises.’ The purpose of this policy is to provide clarification on what is recognised as assistance dogs and the duty on both the University and the assistance dog owners when permitting dogs onto campus.
The University permits the following types of Assistance Dogs:
- Guide Dogs assisting people who are blind or are visually impaired.
- Hearing Dogs assisting people who are deaf or are hearing impaired.
- Support Dogs for people with limited mobility.
- Seizure Alert dogs for people with epilepsy.
You can book onto as many sessions on the day as you would like, just be aware of session timings to avoid any clashes! There will be sessions where booking is not required, please ensure you look at the programme to familiarise yourself with session timings, campus layout and locations.
We want to ensure our festival is inclusive for all audiences. Our facilities on campus are designed to accommodate people with a range of disabilities and are continually improving to support our ever-growing community by putting lots of focus and resources into them.
We have a variety of places to eat, take a break or to grab a quick coffee. Subway, Starbucks and our café are open on the day. As well as our Food Court serving a wide variety of food from cultures around the world. These food outlets cater for a huge range of dietary requirements. Please use the event map to locate the below outlets.
Full list of our food outlets below:
College Lane Campus:
- Gallery café
- Café Rore
- College Lane Shop
- Starbucks
- Subway
- EleHouse
de Havilland Campus:
- Café Ambition
There are multiple water points throughout the whole University.
Attendees can either bring a packed lunch or bring cards/cash to purchase refreshments. However, please note some vending machines around campus only accept card.
Our event is being held on our College Lane Campus:
There is free parking available at our Park and Ride car park at Angerland AL10 8HS. It is located off Junction 2 of the A1(M) on Southway (A1001) and there is a free shuttle bus to campus. There is parking available for Blue Badge holders in car park B on campus at College Lane.
Please check your junk folder for confirmation emails. If you still cannot see any emails, please contact ideas@herts.ac.uk with your query.
You can edit or cancel your booking via your booking portal page which is linked within your confirmation emails.
There is nowhere to store personal belongings, please only bring small bags and minimal personal items.
Buggy's and pushchairs can be used around the campus, however please be advised there will be limited space in session rooms. There will be a buggy park on-site which visitors can utilise but all items are left at their own risk.
There will be professional photography and videography taking place at our event for marketing purposes; if you do not wish to be featured, please speak to a member of the team on the day.
If you’ve tried to book onto a session but have been added to the ‘waitlist’, this means that the session is fully booked and you have been placed on a waitlist. If spaces become available in the lead up to the event, you will be automatically moved from ‘waitlisted’ to ‘booked’ and this will be reflected in your booking portal, which you can access via your booking confirmation email.
If on the day of the Festival, your session still says ‘waitlisted’, it is unlikely that the session will be available, so please only join the session if your booking updates to ‘booked’. We recommend keeping an eye on your portal in the run up to the Festival, and if you have a few sessions that are ‘waitlisted’, to please explore the variety of other sessions that you may enjoy and book onto these so that you can plan ahead for your visit.
We like to encourage the use of public transport to our event. Attendees can travel for free across our UNO bus network for the whole journey or to access our campus from Hatfield and St Albans train stations.
You just need to register to attend the Festival in advance and select how many guests you'll bring. You'll receive an email before the event which will have a link to the voucher covering Friday 17 and/or Saturday 18 May. Please show the voucher to the bus driver to claim your free travel (digital is fine).
Please visit the Uno website to plan your journey.
Please contact ideas@herts.ac.uk and our Festival of Ideas team will be happy to help.