Cheltenham Science Festival is one of the UK's leading science festivals, and is part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for the Jazz, Music and Literature Festivals that run every year.

A science festival is a festival that showcases science and technology with a similar atmosphere to an arts or music festival, and that primarily targets the general public. These public engagement events can be varied, including lectures, exhibitions, workshops, live demonstrations of experiments, guided tours, and panel discussions. There may also be events linking science to the arts or history, such as plays, dramatised readings, and musical productions. The core content is that of science and technology, but the style comes from the world of the arts.