THOUSANDS FLOCK TO 2013 FESTIVAL!

More than 34,000 seats have been filled at this year’s Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, breaking all previous records and confirming the Festival’s status as New Zealand’s premiere festival of literature and ideas. Over five days, audiences have packed Auckland’s Aotea Centre and Art Gallery to hear 150 writers and thinkers from around the world discuss, debate, present, explain, perform, read and sing in more than 100 sessions and workshops.

Events this year, including free readings and discussion sessions as well as a new debate format and intimate concerts, have attracted unprecedented interest, with people being turned away from some sessions due to excess demand. Festival Director Anne O’Brien says final information will take some weeks to come through but on provisional figures it is conservatively estimated that more than 13,000 people will have engaged with the Festival in some way over the last five days, an increase of 25% over 2012.