Our Blog/Newsletter Archive
In case you missed these in your inbox or have not yet made it to the subscriber list (subscribe below!).
4 August, 2026 —
WHY A FUNGI FESTIVAL?
The short answer:
Why not? Fungi are incredible and worthy of befriending on larger scales.
The long answer:
Because Edinburgh — and Scotland as a whole — deserves a space where mycologists, foragers, artists, ecologists, and curious newcomers can come together to celebrate the historically overlooked, abundantly vibrant world of fungi. This must be a space where knowledge is shared freely between passionate people across communities, disciplines, and age groups, as well as a space where no one is turned away by cost or deterred by remoteness.
As the Edinburgh Fungi Festival (EFF) invites everyone from seasoned fungiphiles to those just dipping their toes into the myco-world to explore the magic beneath our feet, we must first pay homage to our festival predecessors and understand the sociocultural niche which fungi festivals have inhabited for over a half-century.
Fungi Festivals: A Global Phenomenon and EFF’s place in it
Festivals focusing on fungi are not new. The emergence of modern fungi festivals can be traced back to two events occurring just weeks apart.
The year was 1974. Across the Western U.S., social and political landscapes were constantly reshaped by events such as Nixon’s Watergate, the return of Vietnam troops, and the passage of the landmark Endangered Species Act (ESA). While relationships between people and the land they lived in felt incresingly mediated by shaky and suspicious government officials, communities became emboldened to practice a more grassroots environmentalism — understanding the dire nature of the biodiversity and climate crises which spurred the passing of the ESA to begin with.
Against this backdrop, the Santa Cruz Fungi Fair (1974) and the Aspen Mushroom Festival (1974, later becoming the world-renowned Telluride Mushroom Festival) emerged as two of the earliest recorded modern fungi festivals. Both started as community-driven events to celebrate and spark interest in fungi, with a particular early emphasis on identification, foraging, and the medicinal potential of certain species. These festivals reflected a broader desire to find meaning, wonder, and self-sufficiency in the natural world, as well as to destigmatize ‘mushrooms’ which had been misrepresented and associated with crime thanks to Nixon’s War on Drugs.
Telluride’s mushroom festival has grown significantly since its founding, evolving from a small community gathering into a major regional event that attracts thousands of international attendees annually. Its success has even inspired similar events across Coloradox, fostering a state-wide appreciation for fungi and their role in ecology, cuisine, culture, and policy. In 2023, the festival even expanded to include a dedicated mycology research symposium, furthering its impact on the local and global communities past the dates of the annual festival itself.
Festivals with a Mission: Education, Sustainability, and Community
Since the seventies, more festivals have been created around the world, each with diverse aims molded by the territory from which they grew.
The African Rising Mushroom Festival in Uganda was started in 2022 to teach attendees mycological skills such as mushroom cultivation, with the misson to ‘harness the power of mushrooms to address the urgent needs of the region.’ A facilitator noted: “What stood out to me most was the energy around mushroom cultivation, and the happiness it brought the local community to have international visitors & educators”.
Chile – the hugely biodiverse South American country – hosted its first fungi festival in 2016 — Fungifest Valdivia — and by 2025, recorded more than twenty festivals nationwide. The festivals range from three-day gatherings of over 15,000 festivalgoers to intimate community events in municipal gymnasiums. The vision of Fungifest continues to be: “To democratize access to ancestral and scientific knowledge about mushrooms, facilitating instances of exchange and collaboration.”
There are also festivals that highlight a specific mushroom, usually for culinary reasons: for example, the masutake mushroom, highly prized mushroom in many Asian countries, is the star of a festival in Bhutan, where it is native (to the Ura valley). The famous truffle mushroom, which is usually associated with European countries such as France, Italy and Croatia, gained popularity in the United States throughout the 20th century – so much so that The Oregon Truffle Festival was created in 2006 to celebrate the 100 years of research the state has conducted on truffles, both native and European.
Fungi Festivals in the UK
Fungi festivals have been slow to catch on in the UK, but the tide is turning. The momentous global forces of the myco-movement — interlacing with the increasing local research, art, and tradition-sharing surrounding fungi — are slowly peeling back the stubborn vestiges of the country’s historic ‘mycophobia’ (fear of fungi).
This phenomenon has manifested first through the establishment of UK Fungus Day, initially implemented by the British Mycological Society – a UK charity founded in 1896 that promotes the study and understanding of fungi in all their forms. In 2023, All Things Fungi in West Sussex became the first dedicated mushroom festival in the British Isles, and has steadily grown to attract some of today’s most innovative global mycological thinkers and doers.
Further north, a few fungi festivals have popped up in rapid succession, building upon the aforementioned successes of the British ‘mycophilic’ (fungi-loving) community. The Edinburgh collective Mycobee Mushrooms host their annual foraging festival Forest to Fork which covers themes of medicinal mushrooms, fungus identification, and culinary applications. Northern Fungi Festival, after a successful first festival in Berwick-upon-Tweed in 2025, is relocating to Denholm in the Borders for its second installation.
The Edinburgh Fungi Festival emerges from the crescendo of the myco-movement at a unique point in time for both policy and culture. In 2024, UK and Chile co-launched aFungal Conservation Pledge at the 2024 UN biodiversity conference - the first time fungi entered international policy discussions at such a level. Within the UK, fungi are now being integrated into national biodiversity strategies, with calls to include them in protected species legislation and rewilding projects. This shift reflects a growing recognition of fungi as essential ecosystem engineers, deserving of the same conservation efforts as plants and animals. As EFF takes root in Edinburgh, it stands at the forefront of a mycological renaissance, where science, culture, and policy converge to redefine our relationship with the hidden networks that sustain life — just as its predecessors did. EFF isn’t just about mushrooms—it’s about reconnecting people with nature, sparking curiosity, and building community around one of Earth’s most vital (yet overlooked) king(queen)doms.
Further Reources
