In the Somerset countryside, a new festival of ideas is attempting something rare: not merely to inspire, but to prove inspiration happened. The Big Brue, gathering in Bruton next weekend, has built its programme around deliberate disagreement — pairing speakers of opposing views and measuring, through neuroscientific testing, whether genuine intellectual encounter can make people more open, more empathetic, more willing to sit with difference. It is, at its heart, a wager on the oldest democratic hope — that minds can change, and that changing them together might matter.
Somerset festival tests whether ideas events actually change minds
Can conflict be generative rather than degenerative?
Mark
So they're actually measuring whether people's minds change? That seems almost impossible to prove.
Mimi
That's exactly why they're doing it. Lotto has already run versions of this—he tested it at Cirque du Soleil and found people were more likely to help pick up dropped pens after the show. The idea is that if wonder can shift behavior, maybe intellectual engagement can too.
Luke
But that's a big leap. Helping pick up pens is a single, observable action. "Openness to opposing views" is much harder to quantify. What does the line-finding task actually measure?
Mimi
It's supposed to indicate which hemisphere of the brain someone is using, and if that changes from start to finish, it suggests a cognitive shift. But you're right—it's indirect.
Mark
Why put speakers with genuinely opposing views on the same panel? Wouldn't that just make people defensive?
Mimi
That's the bet. The founders believe conflict can be generative if it happens in the right conditions—with curiosity and compassion. They're testing whether disagreement, when done well, actually opens people up rather than closing them down.
Luke
The panels sound carefully curated though. Osborne and Glenny on AI, Kruger and his mother on family issues. These aren't random conflicts; they're chosen to be substantive but not hostile.
Mark
Does Lotto think this will actually work? Will people leave more open-minded?
Mimi
He's hopeful. He's seen behavior shift after experiences of awe. But he's also a scientist—he's designed the experiment to find out, not to prove a predetermined answer.
Luke
The real question is whether a weekend festival can create lasting change, or if people just feel changed and then revert once they're home.
Der Puls
- In an era of entrenched polarisation, the festival's founders are staking a public claim that productive disagreement is not only possible but measurable.
- The tension is built into the programme itself — a former chancellor beside a critic of tech power, a Reform MP in conversation with his own mother over assisted dying, a poetry battle between unlikely combatants.
- Neuroscientist Beau Lotto will administer psychological questionnaires and a deceptively simple line-measurement task before and after the event to detect genuine cognitive shifts, not just felt ones.
- The rural remove of Bruton and the festival's 'disagree agreeably' ethos are themselves part of the experiment — a controlled environment designed to lower defences and raise curiosity.
- The unresolved question hangs over everything: will the data show real change, or will the familiar warmth of a good weekend dissolve the moment attendees return to their ordinary certainties?
In the Somerset countryside, a new festival of ideas is attempting something rare: not merely to inspire, but to prove inspiration happened. The Big Brue, gathering in Bruton next weekend, has built its programme around deliberate disagreement — pairing speakers of opposing views and measuring, through neuroscientific testing, whether genuine intellectual encounter can make people more open, more empathetic, more willing to sit with difference. It is, at its heart, a wager on the oldest democratic hope — that minds can change, and that changing them together might matter.
When people leave a good festival, they often feel changed. But what if you could actually measure that shift — prove it happened, quantify the opening of a mind? That is the wager behind the Big Brue, a new festival of ideas taking place in Bruton, Somerset, on the grounds of the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Attendees will complete psychological tests before and after the event, designed to reveal whether exposure to opposing viewpoints has made them measurably more open, more empathetic, more tolerant of those who see the world differently.
The experiment was designed by Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist interested in whether conflict can be generative rather than destructive. The programme is deliberately structured around genuine disagreement: George Osborne, now working for OpenAI, appears alongside Misha Glenny, who has written on the global contest for technological power. Reform UK MP Danny Kruger is paired with his mother, Prue Leith, carrying real family disagreement on subjects like assisted dying. Even the literature session is framed as a poetry battle between Dominic West and Bob Geldof. Lotto has tested related ideas before — at a Cirque du Soleil performance, he found that audiences who experienced wonder were significantly more likely to help a stranger pick up dropped pens afterwards. At Big Brue, a simple line-measurement task will serve a similar diagnostic purpose: how someone finds a midpoint can indicate which side of the brain they are favouring, and a shift between opening and closing sessions would suggest something deeper has moved.
The festival's co-founders — journalist Mariella Frostrup and human rights lawyer Jason McCue — describe it not as another talks event but as a space where ideas are genuinely tested, and where disagreement is welcome provided it stays civil. The rural setting is intentional: removed from the urban fray, people may find it easier to practise what the festival calls 'disagree agreeably.' What remains to be seen is whether the data will confirm what attendees feel — or whether, as so often, the sense of change will fade once ordinary life and ordinary certainties resume.
When people leave a good festival, they often feel changed. The conversations linger. The ideas rearrange themselves. But what if you could actually measure that shift—prove it happened, quantify the opening of a mind?
That's the wager behind the Big Brue, a new festival of ideas taking place next weekend in Bruton, Somerset, on the grounds of the Hauser & Wirth gallery. Attendees will be asked to complete psychological tests before and after the event, answering questionnaires and performing simple cognitive tasks designed to reveal whether their exposure to opposing viewpoints has made them measurably more open, more empathetic, more tolerant of people who see the world differently.
Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist and educator, designed the experiment. He's interested in a specific question: Can conflict itself be generative rather than destructive? Can a festival structured around genuine disagreement actually shift how people perceive and engage with those disagreements? The setup is deliberate. Rather than assembling panels of like-minded speakers, the Big Brue has paired people with sharply contrasting views. One session will feature George Osborne, the former UK chancellor now working for OpenAI, alongside Misha Glenny, who has written extensively about the global competition for technological dominance. Another will bring Reform UK MP Danny Kruger into conversation with his mother, Prue Leith, the cookery writer and broadcaster—a pairing that carries real family disagreement on subjects like assisted dying and abortion. Even a literature session has been framed as a "poetry battle" between actor Dominic West and musician Bob Geldof, each championing poems they believe others should love.
Lotto tested a similar approach at a Cirque du Soleil performance, measuring whether the wonder and awe audiences experienced changed their subsequent behavior toward others. In one experiment, an interviewer deliberately dropped pens before and after the show. The result: people were significantly more likely to help pick them up after watching the performance. They were more pro-social, more willing to assist. The line task Lotto plans to use at Big Brue—asking people to find the midpoint of a line—operates on a similar principle. The way someone completes the task can indicate which side of the brain they're favoring, and if that shifts between the festival's opening and closing, it suggests a deeper cognitive change has occurred.
The festival's founders see this measurement as part of a larger philosophy. Mariella Frostrup, a journalist and broadcaster who helped establish the event, describes it not as another talks festival but as a space where ideas are presented and tested, where disagreement is welcome provided it remains civil. Jason McCue, a human rights lawyer and co-founder, frames the entire endeavor around a conviction: that progress emerges from difference and disagreement. The rural setting itself is intentional—removed from the urban fray, the thinking goes, people might find it easier to practice what the festival calls "disagree agreeably."
What remains to be seen is whether the experiment will yield clear results. Can a weekend of intellectual engagement genuinely alter how open someone is to views they reject? Will the questionnaires and cognitive tasks show measurable shifts? Or will people leave feeling changed, as they often do, only to have those feelings fade once they return to their ordinary lives and their ordinary certainties? The Big Brue is betting that by turning the festival into a controlled study, it can answer questions that cultural events have long asked but never rigorously tested.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
We have set up a number of panels with strongly opposing views. We want to examine if the festival can change perception of conflict.— Beau Lotto, neuroscientist
We're creating a space where ideas are presented and tested, where disagreement is welcome so long as its agreeable, and audiences are participants as well as spectators.— Mariella Frostrup, festival founder
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