What is the Brighton Salon?

Speakers who introduce ideas and concepts, who welcome critcism along with the opportunity to be questioned by an interested audience, forms the driving force behind The Brighton Salon.

Held monthly at a number of venues across Brighton, we welcome anyone who is interested in engaging in ideas. The Salon's well known 'post-discussion drinks' take place at a nearby venue and is a further opportunity to continue the discussion.

The idea of a Salon was developed in 17th & 18th Century France. Typically they were created and organised by the aristocratic ladies, to hear the ideas of the great thinkers of the time, to debate their meaning, for entertainment, because they believed ideas were important and because they wanted to know where the world was going, and of course to flirt.

The Salon was central to the intellectual ferment of the end of 18th Century. They hosted the great thinkers of the time; Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire. They were the scenes of excitement, outrage, and the shock of the new in a time when ‘the new’ still seemed possible. They signalled a time when the future was still an unwritten book.

The Brighton Salon is organised in homage to those days which only came to end with the eruption of the French Revolution and the arrival of a new constellation: the age of revolutions. Many historians think the Salons helped develop the ideas that ushered in that age. Here’s to that.