The Big Draw Festival is the world’s largest celebration of drawing, bringing people together through the power of creativity. Whether you’re an individual, school, museum, care home, heritage site, or community centre, The Big Draw Festival provides a platform to explore drawing in all its forms.
The Big Draw Festival 2025: Drawn Together
This year, we celebrate 25 years with the theme ‘Drawn Together’, highlighting how creativity unites us and how collaboration and connection are at the heart of making.
#TheBigDraw #BDF2025 #DrawnTogether
About The Big Draw Festival
Since its launch in 2000, The Big Draw Festival has championed drawing as a universal language and a powerful tool for learning, self-expression, and innovation. Every October, organisers across the globe sign up to be part of the festival, hosting everything from hands-on workshops and exhibitions to large-scale collaborative projects. Find events near you!
The Big Draw Festival is made up of thousands of drawing activities that connect people of all ages with schools, galleries, museums, libraries, heritage sites, village halls, refugee organisations, outdoor spaces, artists, scientists, designers, illustrators, inventors and each other.
This year is our 25th anniversary, and we are marking this important milestone with the theme ‘Drawn Together’. This theme celebrates how creativity unites us, how The Big Draw has brought people together over the past 25 years and how collaboration and connection are at the heart of making and creating.
Whether you’re looking to engage new audiences, inspire others, or simply celebrate the joy of drawing, The Big Draw Festival is your chance to join a worldwide movement that promotes creativity, wellbeing, and visual literacy.
Interested in taking part? Check out our subscription package here.
The Big Draw Festival takes place every October, but the fun doesn’t stop there! An annual subscription to The Big Draw Festival offers organisers the chance to list unlimited events on The Big Draw website, so you’ll find Big Draw activities happening all year round.
Launched in London in 2000, the Festival has since grown into a global movement. Over the past decade, organisations in more than 35 countries have hosted events as part of The Big Draw Festival. Wherever you are, check our events page to see what’s happening near you!
Anyone! The Big Draw Festival is open to everyone, from experienced organisations to first-time event planners. This includes artists, scientists, illustrators, galleries, museums, libraries, schools, care homes, community centres, heritage sites, village halls, refugee organisations, outdoor spaces and more.
If you already have an exciting programme of events, The Big Draw Festival is a great platform to showcase and promote them to a wider audience. And if you’re new to hosting creative events, we’re here to support you every step of the way! We provide helpful resources, advice, and case studies to guide you in planning and delivering a successful event, no matter your experience level. Our goal is simple: we want to get everyone drawing!
Subscriptions for The Big Draw Festival 2025 opened on Monday 24th March, and run until the end of December 2025. While the festival itself takes place from 1st-31st October, your subscription entitles you to unlimited event listings on The Big Draw website all year round!
You can sign up at any time, but the sooner you do, the more you can take advantage of the resources, benefits, and exposure on The Big Draw website to share your activities and events as part of your wider programming.
Subscription fees typically start at £50 for non-fee-paying schools, but to celebrate our 25th anniversary, The Big Draw is waiving this fee to make participation even more accessible! Schools are an integral part of the festival, and we hope to see more than ever inspired to get involved in 2025.
As part of our ongoing commitment to removing barriers to creativity, we are also waiving the fee for Individual Organisers for the fifth year in a row. This includes artists, illustrators, scientists, and other creatives who are hosting events independently, without a partner organisation.
Festival Partner Packages and Sponsorship Packages are also available during The Big Draw Festival.
Interested in taking part, or want to find out more? Check out our subscription package here.
The Big Draw is a very small charity with a very wide reach. Without any public subsidy, we rely on you, our organisers, to keep The Big Draw Festival going. You are not only taking part in The World's Biggest Drawing Festival, you are supporting our charity and joining a movement heralding the vital role of visual literacy in our schools, workplaces, healthcare settings and beyond.
Fees typically start at £50 for non-fee paying schools and individual organisers - however, this fee has been waived for 2025 in celebration of our 25th anniversary year!
Festival Partner Packages and Sponsorship Packages are also available during The Big Draw Festival.
