Once again we’re super pleased to be the sponsors of this awesome up-and-coming festival, and unless you’ve suffered a traumatic brain injury just after you clicked this link, you’ll have noticed that we are very much fans of all things fungi as well as All Things Fungi. So what’s the deal, what are we doing?

We’re running a dedicated mycology space at the festival, with a jam-packed roster of amazing guest speakers. Not just that though: we love a bit of variety, so there’s loads of different hands-on bits that you can get stuck right into. Naturally we’ll also be there (Chris and Andreas from MycoPunks, and that damned dirty ape from Orangutan Trading Co), so if you’ve got any questions you think we can answer or want any useful advice, come and chat, we’ll be in the tent most of the time or you’ll probably be able to find OTC passed out in a bush somewhere nearby.

But never mind us (you already know us), let’s explain a little about who else is gonna be there, in order of appearance:

FRIDAY

12:00 - 13:00: Sam Gandy, Liquid Culture Workshop
Sam Gandy knows what’s up. Liquid culture is something that’s often not used by beginner cultivators, but that shouldn’t be the case - it’s an essential part of the mycologist’s toolkit, and Sam’s gonna show you exactly how to sort your life out. Well, the bit that includes liquid culture anyway.

13:10 - 14:10: Paul Treichl, Lichen, Our Environment & Communities
Paul’s an Austrian chap who is a biodesigner, architect, and artist, and he’s big into the juxtaposition between built and natural environments, and the symbiotic relationship that we can achieve. Should be well interesting!

14:20 - 15:20: Myndful Mushrooms, Medicinal Mushrooms
Chris and Jon are gonna show you how to find, forage, and dual extract some Turkey Tail. It’s been classified as a “novel food” so can’t be sold as a supplement any more, which means you need to learn how to make your own, and these guys are gonna show you exactly how you can do that at home. That’s proper nice, that is.

15:30 - 16:30: Smithy, Growing Reishi Sculptures
If you’ve been along to see us at any of our events, you’d have seen some absolutely mad sculptures grown with Reishi mushrooms. These were courtesy of Smithy, who’s a beautiful blend between a mad scientist and an artist (seems to be a bit of a running theme). Smithy’s gonna show you how it’s done, and you are going to love it.

16:40 - 17:40: Damon Tighe, Practical Mycoblitz
Good lord Damon’s a busy boy. Damon ran out of food on a 2004 trek, and found some mushrooms but knew enough to realise he didn’t know what they were and so he shouldn’t eat them (never munch on a hunch, kids). He decided he’d learn more about them, and at this point he’s got nearly 100,000 observations logged in iNaturalist, all across the planet. He’s all about how you can use mycology to try and improve conditions in our environment, so again, it should be a really interesting talk.

SATURDAY

10:00 - 11:00: Andy Knott x MycoPunks, Native Fungi Cloning
Andy Knott, one of the chaps behind Jurassic Coast Mushrooms and MycoPunks from MycoPunks who are MycoPunks will be showing you how to responsibly forage, clean up, and clone native fungi, and why it’s important.

11:10 - 12:10: Lorin von Longo-Liebenstein, Make a Bioluminescent Nightlight
Winner of the “Best Name at ATFF 25 award”, Lorin is scienced up to the gills. He received the 2025 Community Mycologist award from the American Mycology Society for his contributions to the field, he’s overseen Europe’s largest outdoor medicinal mushroom farm, he’s co-founded and headed the mycology department for a fungal biotech company. If you’re into the science of mycology, this dude’s your dude, and he’s gonna show you how to make a bioluminescent nightlight which sounds fucking cool, doesn’t it?

12:20 - 13:20: Ashley Goldbirch, Mycomaterials Workshop
Ashley runs Goldbirch, a company that’s involved in making products using mycelium, and he’s here to show you how to do exactly that! They’ve got some ace stuff up on their website (goldbirch.org), so if you wanna learn how to mix art, science, and practical craft all together and make something insanely interesting, then you’ll need to be here for this.

13:30 - 14:30: Flete Field Lab, Mycoremediation Workshop
It’s not going to come as a shock to anyone reading this that we are busy royally fucking up the planet. Can mushrooms be a part of the remedy? You already know the answer to this - course they can! Frank and Shelley are working with Plymouth University, West Country Rivers Trust, The Flete Estate and Holistic Restoration to discover and evidence low-cost but high-impact ways of making our soil and water better. Only got one planet, my dudes.

14:40 - 15:40: Tom from Atlantic Fungi, Cultivator Skill Share
Diversity is the greatest strength we have, because we’ve all got various strengths and weaknesses, and Tom’s going to leverage that in his session. He’s sent out a form to various cultivators, and harvested a wealth of responses on what people are good at, less good at, and the topics they’d like to address, so we’re all going to come together and share our techniques and skillsets so that we all come away from this session with a few more tools in the mycology box.

15:50 - 16:50: Tom from Atlantic Fungi x MycoPunks, Cultivator Networking
A sort of follow-on session from the previous one, where we can all have a nice chat, exchange details and arrange some meetups!

SUNDAY

10:00 - 11:00: Lorin von Longo-Liebenstein, Kids Cultivation Workshop
Man I genuinely enjoy typing his name, it’s got a nice feel to it as my hands rattle across the keyboard. We all know growing mushrooms is the mutt’s nuts, and Lorin’s going to show the young ‘uns how to get into it themselves, in a nice, age-appropriate way. Wholesome.

11:10 - 12:10: Elvis Benson, Cultivation Workshop
Elvis is into making mycology accessible for everyone: it doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated, and there are a lot of ways of being very successful in your mycological endeavours without having to break the bank.

12:20 - 13:20: William Brown, Drawing Fungi
William is the brains and hands (and the rest of a body too we imagine) behind Fungalphabet. Originally conceived as a way to introduce his daughter to the world of mushrooms, he’s now got a whole series of illustrated books designed to spark curiosity and teach about an often-neglected part of nature. He’s gonna show you how to draw your own fun mushroom characters, and also take you for a stroll through the woods hunting out those cheeky mushrooms!

13:30 - 14:30: Fat Fox Mushrooms, Breeding Fungi
Ben and Lex run Fat Fox Mushrooms, based in London. They’re going to run a nicely informative workshop all about breading mushrooms. No wait I’ve read that wrong, it’s about breeding mushrooms - no panko crumb involved.

14:40 - 15:40: Merlin Sheldrake, Book Signing
Who’s this guy? Makes hot sauce or something I gather? Knows some bits about mushrooms? Seriously though if you’re into mycology then it’s pretty likely you know who this fella is. You probably even have his books. If you do, bring them along, and he’ll sign them for ya.

15:50 - 16:50: Julie Beeler, Book Signing
Amongst other things, Julie makes amazing artworks using dyes made from fungi and she’s published The Mushroom Color Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pigments Made from Fungi with illustrations from Yuli Gates. It’s a cracking book, and if you want to come along and meet her and ask her to sign your copy, then you’re onto a winner.

17:00 - 18:00: Jasper Sharp, Book Signing
Jasper’s a writer, film critic, and filmmaker, and also he’s a mycologist! Together with Tim Grabham he made the award winning 2014 documentary film The Creeping Garden which is about mycologists, artists, and fringe scientists and their relationship with plasmodial slime mould - you know Max Mudie’s into this, hardcore. As well as some books about the history of Japanese cinema, he’s also written a companion book for The Creeping Garden!

So there you have it - an absolutely fucking stacked selection of people willing to share their knowledge with you and that ain’t all of it! We’re also providing free Wifi so you can upload your weekends foraging finds to iNaturalist, and we’ve got all the microscopes, flow units, books and consumables you’ll need to work with whatever haul you manage to come away with.

Can’t wait to meet ya!

Derek - MycoPunks