Edinburgh Science Festival 2027

The Edinburgh Science Festival returns to the city from Saturday 3 to Sunday 18 April 2027, taking over various locations across Edinburgh. It's not a single-venue thing; the programme is spread across galleries, museums and public spaces in both the Old Town and the New Town, so you'll find it popping up in a few different neighbourhoods over the two weeks. The 2027 edition runs under the theme Dreamers.

It's a broad church of a festival. Science is taken in the widest sense here, covering physics, biology and chemistry alongside technology, medicine, climate, mathematics and space. The format changes depending on what you're after: there are talks by scientists working at the frontier of their fields, demonstrations that make abstract concepts physical, hands-on workshops and exhibitions. If you're more of a listener, the talks are the way in; if you'd rather see something happen in front of you, the demonstrations and workshops do the heavy lifting.

At the heart of it is a dedicated children's programme of experiments and live demonstrations. The festival runs on the conviction that the best time to spark an interest in science is before children decide they aren't interested, so that's where a lot of the energy goes. It's built around the Easter break, which is why it's always in April.

For a bit of context, the Edinburgh Science Festival launched in 1989 as the world's first public celebration of science and technology in a festival format. It's been running every April for more than thirty-five years now, and it remains the UK's largest and one of Europe's biggest, drawing over a hundred thousand visitors. The 2027 edition runs from Saturday 3 to Sunday 18 April, spread across galleries, museums and public spaces in the Old Town and the New Town.