In response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Council for British Archaeology (CBA) has decided to make some changes to the 2020 CBA Festival of Archaeology and it will now be taking place in two parts with a series of digital events in July and on the ground events in October.
We know that many people look forward to the Festival each July so we have decided to hold a week of digital activity to ensure everyone can still enjoy the Festival despite the current social distancing measures. The second week in October will provide the opportunity to participate in on the ground Festival events and activities around the UK and attending events in your local area is a great way to support the local groups, charities, museums and heritage organisations that have been affected by coronavirus.
This year’s Festival theme is Climate and Environment and we’ll be offering a range of events, activities and competitions in July and October that will help you discover more about archaeology, climate change and the environment we live in.
Digital events 11-19 July
The first part of the Festival will take place from the 11-19 July and will be 9 days of digital activity designed to help people explore archaeology from home. There will be a range of events including A Day in Archaeology and Ask an Archaeologist Day alongside new events from the CBA and the Shout Out Loud project. There will be new opportunities each day for you to get creative with and inspired by archaeology online.
On the ground events 14 October – 1 November
The second part of the Festival will run from 14 October – 1 November and will be an opportunity to get out and discover some incredible archaeology. Over 9 days, the CBA and event organisers around the UK will be offering a wide range of opportunities to participate from talks and walks to hands on activities, skills training and family-friendly fun.
Keep in touch
We will be updating the Festival of Archaeology website regularly with news and event details and we will also be launching the first of this year’s Festival competitions in the coming weeks. To keep up to date with all the latest news you can sign up for our e-newsletter or get in touch with your questions by emailing us at festival@archaeologyuk.org.
Event organisers
If you are an event organiser and had been planning an event for July, we would like to invite you to join us for the October element of the Festival. Due to the current uncertainty about when social distancing measures will be lifted, we are unable to promote any on the ground activities in July. Instead, we encourage you to join us in October so that we can help support your group or organisation by promoting your venue and/or activities.
We are hoping we will also be able to provide opportunities for event organisers who wish to deliver a digital event in July. We will be sharing more information about this in the next few weeks.
We will be updating all of the organisers’ information on the Festival website over the coming weeks but in the meantime if you have any questions please do get in touch with the Festival team at festival@archaeologyuk.org.
