Global Ideas Stage: Ken Burns, Gordon Brown, Bryan Stevenson and Amy Goodman
News & Blogs 10 Jun 2026News Story
The Global Ideas Stage brings together perspectives from politics, law, music, film and the arts to confront the defining questions of our time. What does a just world look like – and what will it take to build one?Professor Adam Dixon, Director of Panmure House
Explore this year’s Festival theme, All Rise, with the great thinkers of today on the new Global Ideas Stage.
The Global Ideas Stage features intimate dialogues and panel discussion between Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, filmmaker Ken Burns, lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson and journalist Amy Goodman. The event explores 2026 Festival theme, All Rise, a rallying cry of resilience and ascendance marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
The Global Ideas Stage is curated and hosted by Harvard professor and award-winning author Sarah Lewis and Festival Director Nicola Benedetti.
From the Enlightenment, into the Future.
The Global Ideas stage explores topics including the Scottish Enlightenment's influence on America and the arts as a medium for ideas and the state of democracy today. It takes inspiration from both the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the 250th anniversary of the writing of The Wealth of Nations. The event reignites the coffeehouse discussions of Edinburgh’s enlightenment.
The event is presented in collaboration with Professor Adam Dixon and Panmure House, the last home of Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith.
Our first ever Global Ideas Stage brings together a curated group of influential thinkers as we tackle urgent universal questions around justice, liberty and the role of the arts in expressing ideas. This inaugural gathering is a testament to our belief that when the abstractness of art and the pragmatism of conversation come together, the deepest impact is possible.Nicola Benedetti, Festival Director
See You There
Tickets are available now. See you at 4pm on Tue 11 Aug 2026 at the King's Theatre. The event will be BSL Interpreted and Captioned.
The Global Ideas Stage is supported by James and Morag Anderson.
