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SAVE THE DATE FOR 2025! We are taking The BIG Event to The Royal Institution, London from Wednesday 16th - Friday 18th July 2025. Pop it in your diary now!


BIG event 2024

Cardiff 24th-26th July 2024 

To the Welsh capital we go! Yes, for real this time. We did attempt to visit Cardiff back in 2020. And then again in 2021... But this time we are determined to make it happen. 

Cardiff is a city with a very long tradition of songs, rugby and a vibrant Sci-Comm community. Cardiff University (one of our venues) is right in the heart of the civic centre and has a beautiful parkland, an historic castle, a world-class museum and Victorian arcades all within a 5 minute walk. Cardiff is compact (much like the BIG Event), culture-packed and ready for the most hotly anticipated conference on any STEM communicator’s calendar.

The University has modern lecture theatres, labs and various meeting spaces available to host the melting pot of creative ideas that make up the BIG Event. And if all the outstanding interaction becomes too much, you can always take a little walk down the corridor in Sherlock’s mind palace and play spot the Dr Who location. Plus, we guarantee the sun will be shining.*

*There just might be clouds in the way... Joking aside, Cardiff actually has more hours of sunshine a year than the UK national average.


Accommodation

We’ve reserved rooms in the student halls for those wanting cost-effective and extremely convenient accommodation at the BIG Event. But book quickly as these rooms are on a first-come-first-served basis! 

Accommodation at the BIG Event 2024, Cardiff University


What is the BIG Event? 

The BIG Event is a three day get-together every summer to share skills and experiences, develop professional links and keep up-to-date with the STEM engagement field. This is the place to hone your skills and recharge your professional batteries, pick up great ideas and show off your talents to peers.


It provides an unmissable opportunity to squeeze the skills and ideas out of all the STEM engagement people you can in a short space of time. It’s like power juice for STEM communicators.

The content for the BIG Event is created by the members. And the people who say they get the most out of it are the people who contribute the content.

This will be a hybrid BIG Event. As many sessions as possible will be delivered as hybrid events, so if you can't get to Cardiff in-person, you can still join us online.

View previous year's programmes below: 
Newcastle in 2017: BIG_Event_2017_Programme_Final.pdf
Winchester in 2018: BIG_Programme_2018.pdf
Edinburgh in 2019: FINAL_BIG_Programme_2019.pdf
Belfast in 2022: BIG_Programme_2022_5.pdf
Birmingham in 2023: BIG_Programme_2023.pdf


Bursaries 

BIG bursaries provide financial assistance to enable members to attend one of our events.

BIG offers a handful of bursary places which will:

  • pay registration fees for the BIG Event
  • one year's BIG membership
  • give reasonable expenses to support your attendance at the BIG Event

For full details and to apply, see our Bursaries page


REGISTRATION

Registration opens from 21st May, 2024 

Your registration to the BIG Event entitles you to a free 12-month membership to BIG, with all its benefits


General event registration (non-speakers)

  • Full conference (all 3 days including conference dinner) - £330 early bird rate* (£380 after 20th May, 2024)
  • 2-days only - £290 (conference dinner not included, but can be added to your basket for £80)
  • 1-day only - £150 (conference dinner not included but can be added to your basket for £80)
  • Hybrid - £70 (a link to all hybrid sessions will be sent to you nearer the time)


Speakers registration  (Check your email for the booking code)


  • Full conference (all 3 days and including the conference dinner) - £240 early bird rate* (£310 after 20th May, 2024)
  • 2-days only - £170 (conference dinner not included, but can be added to your basket for £80)
  • 1-day only - £40 (on the day of your session only; conference dinner not included, but can be added to your basket for £80


Hybrid registration  

  • All Hybrid sessions (plus 12 months membership) - £70
  • There will be at least 7 Hybrid sessions available. Potentially more. A hybrid session will take place at each time slot throughout the programme. The final programme will be sent to you as well as details of how to access sessions closer to the Event. Please make sure you are receiving emails from event@big.uk.com so you don't miss out on your log in details.

    All Hybrid sessions are marked as  such on the DRAFT programme (this is subject to change). 

Hybrid Ticket


Travel and accommodation is not included in any of the conference rates, however, we are in the process of securing University en-suite accommodation very close to the BIG Event location. More information to come after the Easter Break. 

*Early Bird requires full payment on or before 20th May, 2024. If full payment isn't received by 20th May, your registration will be honoured at the Full Price until 3rd June, 2024. After this point, if we still haven't received full payment, your registration will be cancelled. 



Cancellation and Refund Policy

Payment for all events must be received by the day of the event. If payment is not received by the day of the event, your attendance cannot be honoured at the event.

We can, by prior arrangement only, honour your attendance at the event if an official purchase order number has been generated and is being processed by your organisation’s finance department.

If you wish to cancel your registration:

  •  a full refund will be issued for cancellations at least 30 days prior to the event.
  • 50% refund will be issued for for cancellations at least 15 days prior to the event. 
  • 25% refund will be issued for cancellations made at least 5 days prior to the event. 
  • cancellations made less than 5 days prior to the event will not be refunded.
  • if your registration was paid by Stripe, any refunds or part-refunds will be minus the small fee that BIG pays to Stripe.
  • you may transfer your registration (and membership) to a colleague for no charge with up to 24-hours’ notice of the event.

In the event of non-attendance at the event, refunds will not be given.


More details about The BIG Event

Queries? 

Email the Event Manager here


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