Here you can look forward to three days of furious debate and sparkling conversation live on stage. It’s free to come in, sit down and enjoy and we can guarantee you a lively mix of content that is both thought-provoking and enjoyable. You can speak up too and have your say.

At The Game Fair 2025, topics such as fishing, farming tourism, investment, land management and conservation were covered as well as celebrity appearances from Merlin Griffiths, Jimmy Doherty and Vinnie Jones. The Carter Jonas will be at The Land Management area.

The Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre Timetable 2026

Friday 24th July

Please note: timings subject to changes. Please check back.

Time Slot Act
10.00am – 10.30am No mention of trailhunting or trophy imports in the King’s Speech in the spring: Keir Starmer’s advantage was his inability to push through policies that damaged the countryside. What we do not want is for Andy Burnham to be more effective. Tim Bonner explains the Countryside Alliance strategy for dealing with this government.
10.30am – 11.00am Inheritance tax still looms large over the political landscape. We look at ways to avoid it, such as granting public access, with Andrew Fallows from Carter Jonas, Charlie Barrow wealth management firm JM Finn adds its advice, Dan Martin from accountant Ellacotts, and Lodders solicitor John Rouse.
11.00am – 11.20am Boris Johnson’s environmental policies set fire to the English uplands. Will Andy Burnham’s government put this right? Andrew Gilruth from the Moorland Association explains the politics of burning heather.
11.20am – 11.35am Henry Cole of TV’s Shed and Buried talks about how he and Fuzz Townshend visited a tractor-packed shed in Chepstow to uncover a legendary Grey Fergie—the iconic Ferguson TE20, a 1966 three-cylinder Ferguson 135, and their restoration of a 1950s Massey Ferguson combine.
11.35am – 11.50am Carbon credits: a money-making scam, a basis for securing estate finances or both? Mark Russell from Carter Jonas talks about sustainability and Andrew Chandler discusses the impact of carbon credits on the land market.
11.50am – 12.05pm Wolfe Bentinck, is co-founder of the Only Farmers app alongside his mother, Lisa Hogan, partner of Jeremy Clarkson. Launched in 2026, the platform acts as a bridge between the public and working farms, helping agricultural businesses showcase local produce, farm stays, vineyard tours, and experiences.
12.05pm – 12.20pm Victoria Atkins MP, shadow DEFRA secretary of state, talks about what’s wrong with this government.
12.20pm – 12.35pm New junior world record setter Beth Norton comes to talk about how she is taking Skeet shooting by storm.
12.35pm – 12.50pm Duchy of Cornwall farm sell-off to tenants: Henry Gay bought his family farm from the Duchy, which his family has farmed for 500 years, plus Chris Turner from Carter Jonas talks about the Renters’ Rights Act.
12.50pm – 1.10pm Any grouse this year? GWCT director of Scotland Nick Hesford, senior advisor Scotland Felix Meister and upland ecologist Leah Cloonan talk about that plus the GWCT’s upland flagship Maternal Grouse project. Red grouse have declined by 33% in recent years. With some moors producing consistent bags and others not shooting for several years, GWCT’s research team has set out to discover why.
1.10pm – 1.30pm Do you have money to put into gold? Stuart O’Reilly and Chris Barker from the Royal Mint can sell you coins that are worth more than their weight. Here’s how it works.
1.40pm – 2.00pm The Countryside Awards are clothing company Schoeffel’s contribution to the national debate about the future of rural Britain. Marcus Jansen from Schoeffel and Tim Furbank from OakBank Game & Conservation talk about what makes them great.
2.00pm – 2.15pm Rare birds make money make rare birds less rare: GWCT director of research Andrew Hoodless talks about the success of the GWCT’s black grouse range expansion project funded by Natural England’s ‘Species Recovery’ funding, and additional money from BASC and donations. For the first time in 200 years birds translocated from the Pennines to the North York Moors have successfully been lekking and breeding.
2.15pm – 2.30pm BASC’s top team discuss their recent High Court victory against Natural England and how their Fighting Fund can lead the battle for shooting.
2.30pm – 2.45pm Daily Telegraph environment correspondent Patrick Galbraith comes to the theatre to talk about the rural news agenda – what makes the front pages and what’s not even a crossword clue these days.
2.45pm – 3.00pm Sarah Roberts is an environmental journalist and biologist with 15 years’ experience in conservation, known for the Netflix documentary All the Sharks and co-hosting a podcast with Steve Backshall. In this session, she discusses her five-year documentary ‘The Hunt: Into the Grey’ and why investigating the global trophy hunting debate challenged her own views, revealing a far more complex story than the black-and-white narrative many of us have been led to believe. Sarah joins Charlie to chat about how the film has gone down so far, the challenges of reaching a wide audience on this polarising debate and the importance of having the difficult conversations
3.00pm – 3.20pm Break
3.20pm – 3.40pm What should the new prime minster do? In the first BASC Christopher Graffius Memorial Debate, Orlando Wind-Cowie of Lodestone joins Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP to discuss what Andy Burnham must do to win back the countryside
3.40pm – 3.55pm Celebrity mixologist Merlin Griffiths on his campaign to save the UK’s rural pubs.
3.55pm – 4.15pm Jeremy Wade is 70 years old. Here’s how his River Monsters series has reeled in a nostalgic Gen Z.
4.00pm – 6.00pm Private reception

Saturday 25th July

Please note: timings subject to changes. Please check back.

Time Slot Act
10.00am – 10.20am Three more years. The Labour Government, with its massive majority, has until August 2029 to rebuild its relationship with the British countryside. Trailhunting bans, family farm tax, and Islington animal rights agends: we look at what it is likely to do and what we can do to fight back. Panel includes Marnie Lovejoy from BASC, who specialises in holding the government to account, and former DEFRA minister Sir Mark Spencer from Aim to Sustain.
10.20am – 10.40am Marina Gibson is the Queen of British Fishing. She talks about victories for women in angling.
10.40am – 10.55am Safari Club International UK chapter deputy president Chris Bryde talks big game hunting.
10.55am – 11.15am How to do a strategic review of your land to make it more resilient for the future. Ted Beale from Carter Jonas talks about how tenancies saved the day for one Warwickshire landowner. Plus Charlie Barrow from wealth management firm JM Finn talks about the next generation of landonwers and how to safeguard estates for them.
11.15am – 11.40am Celebrity chef Marco-Pierre White talks about his love of the countryside, wild food and deerstalking.
11.40am – 11.55am Where do all the snipe go? GWCT wetlands ecologist Bleddyn Thomas reveal the first findings on a pioneering research project to discover where our wintering snipe go to breed, tracking migration routes to places as far away as Russia, Scandinavia and Iceland.
11.55am – 12.15pm Nigel Vardy, aka Mr Frostbite. Caught in a storm 30 years ago on Mt McKinley in the USA, Nigel lost his nose, the ball of his foot and all his fingers from the cold. He loves his shooting and has had a gun specially designed for him to shoot.
12.15pm – 12.30pm His firm makes some of the most desirable big game hunting rifles in the world: Luke Davison from Westley Richards discusses the reinvigoration of and reinvestment into the Birmingham gun trade.
12.30pm – 12.50pm How the BBC’s ‘Secret Garden’ scriptwriters gave Sir David Attenborough duff information on pheasants. The BBC’s recent wildlife series claimed pheasants ate vast numbers of insects, reptiles and amphibians every day with no evidence to back it up. In fact, the reverse is true, best practice gamebird releasing achieves a biodiversity gain, which is the subject of Game for Nature, a new report by GWCT. CEO Nick von Westenholz and director of advisory Roger Draycott discuss its findings.
12.50pm –  1.05pm Pietro Scovazzo and his colleague Daniele Piva come to the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Beretta family’s gunmaking business.
1.05pm – 12.25pm Jo Pearson from the Moorland Association is on charge of putting in heather-burning applications. She comes to the theatre to talk about how this government could improve.
12.25pm – 1.40pm Nicole Moore has brought out a book: Shooting Girl With An Afro. It describes her journey into shooting and what she gets out of it now.
1.40pm – 2.00pm A Suffolk horse comes to the Game Fair Theatre. Matt Burdock from the Suffolk Horse Society is here to talk about the breed, as well as the wider issue of rare breeds and how we preserve them.
2.00pm – 2.20pm National Trust madness: Richard Bailey from the Peak District Moorland Group discusses the Snake Pass wildfire. The moor was ‘rewetted’ a dozen years ago and still it burns. We need fuel load management.
2.20pm – 2.35pm Warwickshire county councillor Scott Cameron (Restore Britain) successfully introduced, saw off opposition from the antis and had passed a motion supporting gamekeepers and farmers in the county. He comes to the theatre to explain how he did it.
2.35pm – 2.50pm Newspaper columnist and farmer Jamie Blackett talks about his antidote to the RSPB: Ground Cry, the campaign to save meadow birds, waders and other ground nesting birds.
2.50pm – 3.05pm Ash Smith and Dr Becky Malby from the Dirty Business TV series explain the horrors of the water industry, and how the media is turning the argument around.
3.05pm 3.20pm BASC’s James Sutcliffe is here to discuss why deer numbers have fallen.
3.20pm – 3.40pm Sarah Roberts is an environmental journalist and biologist with 15 years’ experience in conservation, known for the Netflix documentary All the Sharks and co-hosting a podcast with Steve Backshall. In this session, she discusses her five-year documentary ‘The Hunt: Into the Grey’ and why investigating the global trophy hunting debate challenged her own views, revealing a far more complex story than the black-and-white narrative many of us have been led to believe. Sarah joins Charlie to chat about how the film has gone down so far, the challenges of reaching a wide audience on this polarising debate and the importance of having the difficult conversations.
3.40pm – 4.00pm The Modern Ruralist Craft Yard: Andy Cutbill of Instagram’s The Modern Ruralist has curated a collection of Britain’s most remarkable working craftspeople, creating a place where visitors can meet the makers behind some of our oldest rural skills, and watch them as they work.
4.00pm – 4.20pm GunsOnPegs podcast.
4.20pm – 6.00pm Private reception: GWCT Warwickshire drinks.

Sunday 26th July

Please note: timings subject to changes. Please check back.

Time Slot Act
10.00am – 10.30am Robin Curtis from the Game Fair’s nominated charity, the Gunmakers’ Trust, plus a gunmaking apprentice Sam Garfield from T R White and Co, one of the apprentices the Gunmakers’ Trust currently supports, who is also a recipient a Lady Mayor’s apprentice award 2026, come ot the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre. They talk about careers in the British gun trade.
10.30am – 11.00am Is the Code too old? BASC’s Gareth Dockerty discusses whether the Code of Good Shooting Practice is still relevant in today’s world of bird licensing pressures.
11.00am – 11.30am Henry Cole of TV’s Shed and Buried talks about how he and Fuzz Townshend visited a tractor-packed shed in Chepstow to uncover a legendary Grey Fergie—the iconic Ferguson TE20, a 1966 three-cylinder Ferguson 135, and their restoration of a 1950s Massey Ferguson combine.
11.30am – 12.00pm Charlie Thorburn from Mordor Gundogs is building a ‘dog ranch’. It’s an all-services space for dogs and their owners, including veterinary, kennels training and a demonstration arena.
12.00pm – 12.30pm Master gunsmith Bill Blacker discusses great British gunmaking – why the UK still makes the best in the world.
12.30pm – 1.00pm The Modern Ruralist Craft Yard: Andy Cutbill of Instagram’s The Modern Ruralist has curated a collection of Britain’s most remarkable working craftspeople, creating a place where visitors can meet the makers behind some of our oldest rural skills, and watch them as they work.
1.00pm – 1.30pm Find out about fieldsports. Nicole Moore hosts volunteers on stage, taking part in a fun competition that pits them against the audience. Nicole explains what each volunteer is doing and which fieldsport it relates to, plus she shares advice and her own experience of each sport. There will be goodie bags up for grabs, so come and take part.
1.30pm – 2.00pm Steve Stringer and Jo Pearson of the Gamekeepers Welfare Trust talks about the charity’s 2026 theme: In This Together.
2.00pm – 2.30pm Jeremy Wade is 70 years old. Here’s how his River Monsters series has reeled in a nostalgic Gen Z.
2.30pm – 3.00pm Escape to the Chateau’s Dick and Angel Strawbridge are back, with more adventures from across the Channel.

Our thanks go to Carter Jonas who continue as sponsors of this important and valued facility which is hosted by Charlie Jacoby from Fieldsports Channel.

“Advising on over 1 million acres annually, we help our clients make strategic decisions and be exemplary custodians of the UK’s rural environment for generations to come.”

Carter Jonas