This talk explores the vibrant tapestry of human festivity, examining what global festivals can teach us about human culture and behaviour.

From the masked soirées of Venice Carnival to animist funerals in Sulawesi and drunken pilgrimages in Spain, festivals are the birds-of-paradise of human culture: luminescent, effervescent, eye-catching and strange. But something deeper is going on at festivals. They lift us out of daily life and onto a liminal plain, turning life's structures and hierarchies upside down – and in their carnivalesque chaos, festivals reveal something raw and unaffected in us, allowing us to connect to something greater than ourselves.

Daniel Stables is an award-winning travel writer for National Geographic, the BBC, and national newspapers. His debut book, Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity, was published by Icon Books in August 2025. Find out more on his website.

Up Helly Aa, procession, Shetland, Scotland

Torajan funeral, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

A simpecado (sacred banner) during the El Rocio pilgrimage, Spain