5. Cheltenham Science Festival
The Cheltenham Science Festival, the youngest among the Cheltenham Festivals, started in 2002, but it quickly became one of the most important science festivals in the United Kingdom so we decided to include it on our list of biggest science festivals around the world. The aim of the festivals is to challenge and engage in discussions about controversial topics with Discover Zone as the main feature. Discover Zone is a free exhibition space in Cheltenham’s Town Hall. The festival also includes Fame Lab, a competition in which contestants have 3 minutes to present a topic from science, engineering, and technology in an engaging way that everyone can understand. This competition was first held in 2005 and it was started by Cheltenham Science Festival, but it soon spread to include international contestants, and it became a model for successfully training scientists to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with the public. Over 27,000 people visited this festival in 2016.
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