Can we flip the model of a book festival and make it a success?
Well, St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature recently did just that in only its second year, growing its audience three times over and bringing great book sales, too. And with that, of course, came ooodles of glorious book joy and all the impact that rides along with it. How did we do it? By staying determinedly local, and making ‘outreach’ central to everything we do.
With the decline in children choosing to read and write for pleasure, was there ever a more important time to get children meeting amazing authors and illustrators in person, to provide opportunities for them to be engaged and inspired? I don’t think so. But book events are hard work, difficult to fund and undergoing something of a crisis. Big, long-established literary festivals are losing sponsorship funding and considering reducing their outreach work as they struggle to find an operating model that doesn’t depend on big corporations with complex financial backing and questionable ethics.
There is hope, however — albeit on a much smaller scale. The big festivals do incredible work that plays a very valuable role in boosting both author income and awareness of the industry overall, as well as performing fantastic outreach work within their communities. But our festival takes a different approach. We put that outreach, which focuses on those who most need the benefits of reading, right at the core of the festival.
This comes from the founders of the festival being educators. The festival was the idea of a headteacher, Simon Pollard, and I’m an ex-primary school teacher and serving school governor, too, who runs a business bookselling to schools. We founded the festival together last year and it’s drawn in more passionate educators to the team since then. As teachers, we know the effect reading for pleasure has, but we also fight the daily battle of school funding and the cost-of-living crisis. Yet we firmly believe that the utter joy of author events, book festivals and the proven impact of reading habits should be built right into the heart of the struggling communities we serve. Our core festival team now also includes Julie Sykes, author; Amy Enever, local teacher; Roxy Aiken, local teacher and Phil Webb, chair of Restormel Arts, all who have this same passion for spreading the power of reading to all families in Cornwall.
[This is] a rallying call for educators and other people across the UK passionate about books to not be daunted by launching their own accessible local events.
So, The St Austell Festival of Children’s Literature was born, and its success lies in its community heart. Each ticket is just £1. It’s so important to us that every event is accessible to everyone. So how do we fund this event, which this year featured the likes of Katie Kirby, Rob Biddulph, Onjali Rauf and our festival patron AF Steadman, to name just a few? Well, with sheer determination. Unsurprisingly, funding is our biggest barrier and ongoing priority, but this year we have been supported by lots of local businesses and the town council. The shopping centre that we centre all our events around is a wonderful partner, offering us a great empty shop as our festival hub. Many publishers helped support the event, too, covering travel and/or accommodation costs for their authors. All authors and illustrators receive a fee for their events.
So what does a festival with £1 tickets bring? Are the book sales low? Is attendance flaky? Well, no: quite the opposite. As a festival bookseller reflecting on book sales, it makes total sense that book sales are strong — parents can afford to buy books from the events they’ve attended with their children, as the ticket cost doesn’t break the bank. And event attendance, well you can book more events when they are this price.
So, it’s year two of the festival and of course many people in our audience are middle class families, delighted we are doing something so far south west and at an accessible price, with no compromise in the quality of line up. But we are definitely reaching many of our target local audience members too and know this will continue to grow year on year — because they are our first and chief focus.
On the morning of the schools’ day, I drove around the town and surrounding area dropping off pupil book orders at the eight venues, and everywhere I drove I could see snakes of pupils in fluorescent vests happily plodding to an author event. There was a buzz about the place and it filled my heart. On the Saturday, our big day, one local attendee said: “I’ve spent the whole day in the town centre. I haven’t done that since I was 14!” It’s so great to be serving the local town businesses as well as the community.
One attendee, from a local town, sent me this message after the festival: “The kids have loved all the books we got on Saturday. It was just amazing and so amazing seeing so many children inspired by reading and authors!! Everyone was so friendly and lovely. Cannot wait for next year! My son has already said he wants to get the train over so we can spend all day there and see lots more people!!!”
So, after a very successful second year of the festival, we are not sitting on our laurels. We are straight on with securing funding for year three and plotting our monthly momentum events to ensure the festival isn’t a one-off token gesture but continues to have impact throughout the year. This isn’t a criticism of the big festivals by any means; they are very dedicated about ensuring that their events impact all levels of their communities. Instead, it is, perhaps, a rallying call for educators and other people across the UK passionate about books to not be daunted by launching their own accessible local events. It’s a lot of work, but it can be done, and it is so worth it.
