What to expect from Leeds International Festival of Ideas as bold conversations head back to the city

On October 14 - 18, the Leeds International Festival of Ideas will see voices from across the worlds of culture, politics, science, health, technology, and the arts take on these provocative questions and more. In the eyes of festival director Martin Dickson, the aim of the festival is simple: leave audiences feeling inspired, educated, and hopeful.

In 2017, the Leeds Business Improvement District created the first Leeds International Festival, an event series which aimed to showcase art and culture from across the region. But when the COVID pandemic struck, organisers began to reconsider what the city needs. In 2021, they launched the first Leeds International Festival of Ideas.

Martin said: “We felt people have been lacking in conversation and interaction.

“The idea came to actually just cut it down to the core of the conversation of bringing people together to talk about things that we’re all talking about and challenged by and worried by.”

The new festival arrived in the city in 2021 with nine events, 29 speakers, and 2,000 audience attendees, all eager to discuss the questions of today. Now, the Leeds International Festival of Ideas has become an annual event in Leeds and grown year on year. With 12 events, 47 speakers, and an expected audience turnout of 4,500 people, 2025 is set to be the biggest edition of LIFI yet.

The design of the LIFI programme begins over a year in advance, as LeedsBID organisers consider what topics will appeal to a mix of audiences across Leeds and who do they want to see come to the city. Highlights for 2025 include Public Enemy’s Chuck D’s conversation as to if hip hop can change the world alongside presenter Nihal Arthanayake, and a discussion about why we need to talk about domestic abuse helmed by journalist Victoria Derbyshire. In Martin’s option, the unique appeal of LIFI is that audiences can pick and choose what events they want to attend out of the variety available.

He said: “The range of subject matter this year is the most diverse and broad that we’ve captured.

“You can come to this theatre and across the programme, you could see a really important, really powerful discussion about domestic abuse and two nights before that, on the same festival programme, you can be sat in a room with literally a man who created hip hop and is one of the biggest music names in the room.

“Even more, at the same time you can be debating about who rules the world which is literally what we’re all worried about at the moment.”

Alongside the main events, the 2025 schedule also introduces a brand new youth strand to the festival: Young LIFI, which has been co-ordinated in partnership with local high school The Ruth Gorse Academy.

Earlier in the year, pupils from the school participated in workshops to help design the first Young LIFI event. The end result is a panel discussion exploring how young people build bouncebackability on the penultimate day of the festival. Presented by CBBC’s Newsround presenter Shanequa Paris, the event will centre on how young people can build resilience when faced with difficult situations.

Martin said: “Young LIFI is to give (the pupils) some inspiration and frankly and incredibly special experience.

“Some of the names on the panel are literally the names they came up with as who they’d like to see.”

For Martin, the ethos of LIFI as an event centred on original thinking matches the culture of the city that hosts it. As well as this, he believes that the focus on dialogue throughout the festival perfectly aligns with the character of the Leeds population who are often unafraid to speak their mind.

Martin said: “The brand and personality of what LIFI is are lots of the characteristics of Leeds.

“It’s a bright, inventive, innovative, ideas-led city and we’re quite a loud city. We’re quite chipper, quite opinionated, quite outspoken, and so we think why don’t we share that energy, that personality and that passion?”

LIFI offers a unique series of events where audiences can not only hear experts in conversation but participate in the discussion. The ultimate ambition is to create a festival that celebrates curiosity and fresh thinking.

Martin said: “It’s about social issues of today, real people having an amazing experience with incredible speakers and having a conversation with them.

“It all aims to give you hope, get you thinking new things about a subject when you leave that you’d maybe not thought of, and maybe be a little challenged as well”

To buy tickets for any of this year’s festival events, visit the LIFI website.