The Lyme Regis Fossil Festival – Public Engagement in the Birthplace of Paleontology

Abstract

Lyme Regis is a small town on the south coast of England, widely regarded as ‘The Birthplace of Paleontology’ due to by the many influential early paleontologists who lived and worked in the area (e.g. Mary Anning, William Buckland, Henry Thomas de la Beche, William Daniel Conybeare). It is situated towards the western end of the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site and is world renowned for its paleontology from the marine Early Jurassic rocks. It draws hundreds of thousands of people to look for fossils each year and there are few major museums in the world that do not hold fossils from the coast around Lyme Regis. The first Lyme Regis Fossil Festival occurred in 2005 and was intended to be a one-off event, but its success meant that it became an annual event. The festival was developed to support earth science engagement in its widest form -it presents everything from scientific lectures to circus performances. Each year the festival has a broad theme, highlighting an earth science topic that underpins the programming of the festival. The festival has two public days over a weekend and a school education day on the preceding Friday. As the festival approaches its 20th anniversary, it has gone through cycles, from lows during the global COVID pandemic and times when funding has been hard to secure, to highs of becoming the largest free public paleontology and earth science engagement event in the world.