Going where the people are

The CERN Festival Programme is a way to spread CERN’s spirit of curiosity to the world by interacting with people where they are, reaching out to current and future social and cultural influencers.

With a Science Pavilion present at different music festivals around the world, the project is designed to reach national populations at large, including audiences that are not necessarily interested or attracted by the scientific domain, and with the ultimate goal of encouraging people’s interest in STEM and attracting future scientific talents. 

The CERN Festival Programme was born in 2016, with a first Science Pavilion at a festival in the UK that attracted 4,500 people over the course of 3 days.

By 2019, it had expanded to 4 festivals in 4 different countries with more than 20,000 participants at each Science Pavilion!

Impact:

• Fostering awareness about science.
• Proving that science, and more specifically basic scientific concepts, are accessible to all if explained and demonstrated in plain language and in an engaging way.
• Explaining the need, value and impact of science on society.   
• Taking the opportunity to bring CERN to a broader range of audiences by explaining what physicists, engineers and technicians are doing at CERN.
• For a young audience, providing information and advice about scientific matters, education and possibly inspiring the next generation of scientists.

The 2025 Programme reached approximately 5,000 people across 4 festivals in the Czech Republic, Spain and Denmark.