The first names have dropped for Brain Bar 2025

Europe's biggest festival of the future, Brain Bar, is opening its doors again this year! With the first quarter of the 21st century behind us, we're seeking answers to the question: what will the next 25 years of humanity look like? Join us on September 18–19 at the House of Music Hungary - free entry for students and teachers!

The first quarter of the century is behind us - and in that time, our lives have been radically transformed. Social media has reshaped our relationships and cryptocurrencies and AI have launched a new economic and technological era, while the climate crisis and global pandemics have shaken our sense of security to its core - a far cry from what we expected at the turn of the millennium. Will the next 25 years be just as unpredictable as the last? How can we better forecast what lies ahead - and how can we change our behavior and mindset in response?

At Brain Bar 2025, we’re bringing more than 150 Hungarian and international speakers to the stage to help you prepare for the decades ahead. Coming to Budapest is Mara Einstein - a former communications executive at MTV and NBC and an expert featured in Netflix's famed Buy Now- who claims that marketers use the very same manipulation techniques to build belief systems as cults do. Also taking the stage is Matt Daniels, one of today’s most gifted, Emmy-nominated data illustrators. With stunning visuals, he depicts statistics on loneliness, record temperatures, or even love songs - and at Brain Bar, he’ll reveal how complex data can become beauty, clarity, and emotion.

Why do we keep choosing the wrong partner, the toxic workplace, or the stressful lifestyle — over and over again? Ali Fenwick, possibly TikTok’s most well-known star psychologist, explores how our brains deceive us when we make life’s most crucial decisions. At Brain Bar, he’ll help you spot the warning signs and choose future-forward paths. Also joining the festival is British archaeologist David Wengrow, who’ll explore with you what might happen if we told history differently: would societies function in new ways if our narratives gave as much weight to community and cooperation as they do to power and hierarchy?

Keith Hayward, outspoken professor at the University of Copenhagen, studies the culture of beanbag offices, thirty-somethings living with their parents, and Mickey Mouse t-shirts - all to understand how Western societies make it harder for us to truly grow up.

Freya India, author for The Spectator and GIRLS., brings attention to another modern “epidemic.” At the festival, she’ll explore why people today feel an obsessive need to post even their most personal experiences - and how we might still capture the magic of the moment under the crushing pressure of constant visibility.

Also joining the festival are world-renowned neuroscientist Martin Stransky, anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas, who researches the necessity of rituals, and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, who explores the relationship between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.