You know it’s almost that time of year again (not, not Reddit's annual "is this libs?" fest), where we all get together, fuck off into the woods, and do mushroom-related things with a whole group of like-minded people: that’s right, it’s All Things Fungi Festival 26! 

Once again we’re pleased as punch to be sponsoring the festival, as it’s something that obviously we are well into. Mycology is something that’s not getting the attention it deserves in the UK, and events like this are what helps to bring more focus to our weird little collective of substrate-slinging, spore collecting, nature cataloguing mushroom enthusiasts.

What are MycoPunks gonna be doing there? We’re gonna have a nice range of MycoPunks merch, and maybe some OTC beanies to keep your little noggins warm in the cold when you’re camping, but that’s all just the icing on the cake, really: the main event is the awesome, spectacular MycoPunks Community Mycology tent. 

This tent is crammed fuller than a shoplifter’s jumper with some of the coolest people in mycology, each with their own chunk of knowledge they’re gonna slice off for you, all for free! It ain’t just talking, either, there’ll be plenty of stuff to get involved with and get your hands on, so there’s something for literally everyone! Obviously your favourite MycoPunks will be there too if you fancy a chat, and once again we’re having to keep Orangutan Trading Co sedated with BuzzBalls in the tent just in case he escapes and burgles everyone for whatever booze he can find. Just roll a tin of supermarket cocktail in his general direction and he’ll be no danger.

We’ll also be hosting the King of Reishi, Smithy, and his quite frankly amazing reishi sculptures; if you only do one thing at All Things Fungi Festival 26 it needs to be seeing these things in real life, it’s a work of living art and is more impressive than we have the vocabulary to describe.

But there’s more! The good times just keep on a-rolling! We’ll have free wifi so that you can make sure all your cool mushroom snaps get uploaded to iNaturalist, we’ll have comfy seats, and also we are very nice to talk to so if you somehow just wanna sit down and shoot the shit, then we’d be up for that.

You’d probably like to know more about who is on - this is that bit:

FRIDAY 18th

12:00 - 13:00: Damon Tighe, iNaturalist, Vouchering, and DNA Sequencing - when Damon leaves his house, iNaturalist have to arrange a bank loan to pay for the extra server capacity: He’s clocked in well over 100,000 observations on there (and 2000 DNA sequenced samples), and it’s fair to say he knows his way around the platform. Damon’s gonna show you how to use iNaturalist like a gatdamn pro, and how to collect your own mushroom samples so that you can use them for DNA sequencing to properly record your findings. 

13:10 - 14:10: Paul Treichl, Cryptic Genetic Variation Speculation - Paul is, in his own words, a Critical Biodesigner, Spacial Practitioner / Researcher, Multidisciplinary Artist, an Educator, and also Editor-in-Chief of Feral Worlding. Crikey, leave some jobs for someone else Paul. In Paul’s own words:

“You’ll be taking part in a practical workshop exploring the hidden and unresolved life detected through environmental DNA. After investigating the relationships within one of five ecosystems, each group is introduced to an environmental stressor and chooses one unresolved lineage to speculate from. Through drawing, arranging foraged materials, and finally connecting their ecosystems with red string, participants explore how hidden genetic variation in organisms we barely know might become significant as conditions shift. The workshop uses speculation not to predict a single future, but to think through ecological uncertainty, adaptation, and interdependence.” Sounds pretty interesting to us, looking forward to this one.

14:20 - 15:20: Andy and Chris, Fun with Liquid Culture Jars - admittedly the name needs a little more polishing, but these two jabronis get through more culture than Iain M. Banks. We’d assume you know who they both are, but in case your carbon monoxide detector has run out of batteries, Chris runs MycoPunks, and Andy is one of the chaps behind Jurassic Coast Mushrooms. Who better to learn off than two lads who’re making this stuff for a living? Roll up, and leave with your own nicely-cooked liquid culture, all ready for you to clone some nice mushrooms you find at the festival in front of the flow units we’ll be providing.

15:30 - 16:30: Rich Wright, Culture Club - Rich is here to help you share culturing tips and techniques, and explore how cultures are used in ecology, so if you wanna, bring along your favourite or rare bits, and have a look at what Rich and everyone else has got, maybe do some swapsies, you know the score. Rich is a conservation mycologist at Cardiff University, and has over 20 years of mycology under his belt, working at both Kew Gardens and Plantlife during this time, so if you assumed that he would have a nice collection of very cool stuff, you’d be right. Come and see!

16:40 - 17:40: Smithy, How to Make Your Own Reishi Blocks - you come in the tent, you see the reishi, and first thing most people do is go “whoa fuck look how cool those are! Are they real? They grew? How did you do that?!” and this hour is how you’re gonna find out, from the man that does it best, Smithy. Smithy is to mushrooms what HR Giger was to penises, in that he manages to use the form to create something that’ll leave you questioning what’s actually possible within the bounds of manipulation of the genetic material. In a good way though, not like mushrooms bursting out of your chest or anything like that, they’ll be in blocks.

SAT 19th

10:00 - 11:00: Pete Kinch, Monotub Workshop - Pete is a staunch advocate for the benefits of funga for your body and mind, and believes that everyone should have the chance to grow their own medicine (sounds like he’s at the right festival). Pete’s gonna get everyone involved in making their own low-cost, low-tech monotub setup: getting your substrate correctly hydrated correctly, and getting hands on with fully colonised spawn so you can get all your senses dialled in to what it’s supposed to be like. The workshop’s designed to take you all the way through the path from spores to mushrooms, so if you’re curious about any part of the growing journey, this one’s for you!

11:10 - 12:10: Flete Field Lab, Mycoremediation and Soil Health - using mushrooms to try and improve the water quality of their local area (amongst other things), Shelley Castle and Frank Foley are trying to find low-tech natural remedies for the environmental issues that are rapidly becoming a much larger part of all of our lives. Working right on the front lines as a field laboratory in conjunction with the University of Plymouth, to identify which trials are likely to have the greatest cost/benefit impact, and then sharing research with global researchers and academics, there’s never been a more important time for this sort of research to be occurring.

12:20 - 13:20: Joette Crosier, Ilmoitetaan Myöhemmin - Joette’s got a background in fungal ecology, and currently works as a researcher and PhD candidate developing best practices for conserving threatened funga. She’s defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Reintroduction of rare and threatened wood-inhabiting fungi through inoculation and translocation” at the University of Helsinki on the 21st November last year (shortly after the last All Things Fungi). We get hold of her to find out what this bit’s about as she’s a bit busy, but she’s smart as a whip so we’re confident whatever she delivers is gonna be ace! 

13:30 - 14:30: Joni Wildman, Mycomaterials - Joni’s spent the past four years researching and working with mycelium materials for her PhD at the University of Bath, exploring the many uses of funga to create sustainable, low-environmental cost products. There’s so much that we’re just not doing with something so versatile, and Joni’s here to show you how to make your own stuff! In this workshop, Joni will be helping you to create your own bowl or block from Ganoderma mycelium that you can take home and grow into shape. Making cool stuff from mycelium is awesome, and here’s your chance to open the door to something that’s both environmentally friendly, sustainable, and just plain fuckin’ rad. 

14:35 - 15:55: MycoPunks, Matt Wainwright, Rich Wright, Responsible Cultivation Framework - Already cultivating mushrooms? Wanna cultivate mushrooms? This session’s a bit of a round-table kinda talk about how to do so responsibly, bearing in mind that introducing non-native species to ecosystems (especially on a small island like ours) can often lead to disastrous consequences…

SUN 20th

11:10 - 12:10: Wim Van Egmond, Portraying Microbes - Wim’s a microphotographer, and ever since he was a tiny Wim he’s been keen on trying to capture images of the world that we can’t see with our naked eye. Wim’s a believer that the natural form of these microorganisms is as much a form of art as anything else, so works to bring these aspects into plain sight. Wim is gonna show you some micrographs and time-lapses of funga, and also take you through how you can make your own microscope in the simplest, most accessible way possible so that you can leave the session as a microphotographer yourself!

12:20 - 13:20: Lorin von Longo-Liebenstein, The History of The Krankies, - there has never been a cooler name than Lorin’s. He easily won the “Best name at ATF 25” award, and it’s a dramatic reminder of how much all of the other parents in the world have failed us by not giving us a name as magnificent as Lorin’s.

Lorin spent well over a decade contributing to the field of mycology, and was awarded the “2025 Community Mycologist” award by the American Mycological Society for his work. He’s also notoriously difficult to contact online, not being a fan of social media and also not responding to my email asking for a bit of detail, so we’re just gonna assume that he’s doing a session on the history of The Krankies, the very odd husband and wife team behind beloved 1980s UK TV Star, Wee Jimmy Krankie. Yes, it’s unlikely to be the case, but is it impossible? No. Nothing is impossible.

13:30 - 14:30: Iona Fraser, Microscopy and Slide Preparation - so despite all jokes to the contrary, it’s not true that nobody owns a microscope, but how’s best to get everything loaded up and ready to examine? Join Iona’s session and get involved with how to set everything up perfectly. Iona’s a council member and trustee for the British Mycological Society, and the co-founder of Petrichor Ecology, and has a keen interest in the relationship between neurodivergence and mycology which is something that we’re quite keen on ourselves over at MycoPunks because there seems to be an above-average amount of people in this field (and the office) with fizzy brains.

14:40 - 15:40: Sophie Ferrier x Johnny Furze, Microbiology Bingo - Sophie’s from Hay Regenerative Soils, and Johnny’s from Soil Ecology Lab, and in Sophie’s own words, they’re gonna “take you on a microscopic exploration into soils and fungi. Come away feeling confident in using a microscope and able to identify soil biology and fungi with an exciting, first of its kind Microbiology Bingo”. Gaining a bucketload more useful skills and getting to play a bit of bingo? Sounds like a decent way to while an hour away on a lazy Sunday afternoon…

15:50 - 16:50: Caley Bros, Project Mushroom - in one of my personal favourite bits of business naming ever, The Caley Bros, Lorraine and Jodie, will be doing a hands-on low-tech mushroom growing session. Mycology hasn’t gotta be expensive if you just have a little think about how you go about it, and with a generous handful of Royal Horticultural Society Gold Medals to their name we’d say it’s pretty clear these two have been putting the work in. They’re gonna show you how fungi can turn all kinds of everyday materials and waste into delicious, homegrown food, and you’ll get to have a go at it and take your own grow home!

As you can see, this tent is fuckin' stacked with some of the very best in the game, and you get to come and have do some stuff with them, all included in the price of your ticket to All Things Fungi Festival 2026. Ain't got one yet? Head over to their website and grab one before you miss the boat...