Free tickets

To celebrate the return of the physical Festival this summer, our founders, Wellington College, have funded the release of 2,000 free tickets. These tickets will assist schools and colleges across the UK to send staff to the Festival.

We want to enable at least 1,000 organisations to benefit from the scheme and, therefore, cap the number of tickets to two per school or college.

The scheme is intended to assist schools/colleges that can’t ordinarily afford tickets to the Festival. It is only available to state-funded schools and colleges in the UK.

The third round to apply for free tickets is now live. Applications must be received before the end of Friday 27th May. Valid applicants will then be entered into a lottery for the free tickets.

Tickets for the Festival are now on sale. Tickets can be amended/cancelled up to one month before the Festival.

Terms and conditions for the ticket scheme are available below.

• The free ticket scheme is only available to state-funded schools and colleges in the United Kingdom.
• Applications to the third round of the scheme will open at noon on Monday 16th May and close at 23:59 on Friday 27th May.
• Across all three rounds of applications, a total of 2,000 free tickets will be available, 1,000 per day.
• Tickets are for attendance on one day of the Festival. Tickets can be upgraded to attend on both days for a fee of £28 + VAT.
• To ensure that many schools and colleges can benefit from the free ticket scheme organisations will be limited to two free tickets.
• If multiple applications are received from an organisation only one will be entered into the lottery.
• To ensure that different types of organisations benefit from the free ticket scheme the Festival of Education will implement a quota system to award free tickets via a lottery:
• Early-years, primary, secondary, alternative provision, special schools, sixth-from, FE Colleges.
• Tickets will be distributed as follows:
  • Early-years – 2.5%
  • Alternative provision – 5%
  • Special schools – 5%
  • Primary – 40%
  • Secondary/Sixth-Forms – 32.5%
  • FE Colleges – 15%
• Applications will be reviewed from Monday 30th May
• All applicants will be informed whether they have been awarded free tickets no later than Friday 3rd June
• Successful applicants will be issued a code that will enable them to book their free tickets via a booking portal. Tickets must be booked/claimed no later than Monday 20th June.
• Unclaimed tickets at this date will be cancelled and awarded to another applicant.
• Tickets are not transferable to other schools or colleges or to any future Festivals.
• Free tickets must not be sold to individuals, schools, colleges or organisations.
• At the time of claiming free tickets details must be provided of the attendees. These can be updated up to two weeks before the event.