Two more additions to the QED 2025 programme

We are delighted to announce two further additions to the line-up for the final QED: our panel analysing the last fifteen years in skepticism, and our hands-on workshop teaching how to draw anything.

Skepticism: Looking back, moving forward - For years, academics, magicians, writers and many others have been skeptical about paranormal claims. They have carried out investigations, written articles and books, created films and podcasts, posted on social media, formed organisations and staged meetings across the globe. What have these activities achieved? Is critical thinking on the rise or in decline? What does the future hold for skeptics? Join our experts as they discuss the types of skeptical activity that have had the greatest impact, how skepticism has changed over the years, how our small community can continue to be relevant in the digital age, and much more. Featuring Prof Richard Wiseman, Prof Chris French, Dr Alice Howarth, and Michael Marshall.

How to draw anything - From Feynman diagrams to the tree of life to flat-packed bookshelf instructions, simple visuals can carry the biggest ideas. Yet drawing is too often seen as the reserve of artists and designers. Nobody thinks they need to be a novelist to write a good email, yet many lose confidence when switching from words to pictures. During this workshop, visualisation artist Matt Kemp will equip you with a starter kit of tools and principles to boost your confidence in expressing ideas through drawing, enabling non-artists to craft visual communications that punch well above their weight, making ideas more memorable and easier to understand. The workshop centres on a series of fun practical lessons and challenges. You’ll learn accessible techniques to draw basic pictures of objects, people, action scenes, the past and future, hidden details, emotion and character. You’ll come away with an understanding of the essential tools to start thinking and communicating with pictures.

We are very pleased to add these sessions to the line-up for our final QED. And while the drawing workshop will be very hands on and in the room, the panel will join all of the other content in the panel room, podcast room, and main stage, in being available live to anyone who has an online ticket - priced £49.