With authors demanding payment and overheads tight, organisers are under increasing pressure. What does the future look like?
Illustration by Alex Green at Folio
I think the truth hit last summer, when I was at a festival to interview a group of writers. It was not a literary festival per se, but a combination of music, theatre, comedy and debates, in among which there stood a doughty literature tent, made rustic by the odd hay bale. What one noticed most, though, was the food: an endless vista of eating opportunities, from crepes to dirty burgers to artisanal pizzas to anything but a cheese sandwich.
Mistakenly, given my temperament and my knees, I had opted to camp, albeit in a motor vehicle rather than under canvas. Making my way through the site to literature HQ, I heard a couple of young guys catching sight of a chum. “Hey!” they chirped. “Sweet tent, man! Where’d you get it?” “Harrods,” came the reply.
I will fast-forward you through the rest of the day: the novelists and poets I interviewed were all terrific, and played to a lusty crowd, if smaller than that for the “Gin tasting while playing a ukulele” workshop. Native American headdress count: high. Cost to spend a weekend here: higher. Most surreal moment: spotting John Lanchester wandering through the guy ropes. Departure of your literary correspondent: as soon as possible. Highlight (apart from the writers, of course): the moment when my long-suffering pal and I, having escaped, spotted a municipal leisure centre and flung ourselves sweatily into its pool. That night we pulled up in the chocolate box village of Bourton-on-the-Water, got drunk in a pub and slept in the local car park. Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty we were not. MORE
Mistakenly, given my temperament and my knees, I had opted to camp, albeit in a motor vehicle rather than under canvas. Making my way through the site to literature HQ, I heard a couple of young guys catching sight of a chum. “Hey!” they chirped. “Sweet tent, man! Where’d you get it?” “Harrods,” came the reply.
I will fast-forward you through the rest of the day: the novelists and poets I interviewed were all terrific, and played to a lusty crowd, if smaller than that for the “Gin tasting while playing a ukulele” workshop. Native American headdress count: high. Cost to spend a weekend here: higher. Most surreal moment: spotting John Lanchester wandering through the guy ropes. Departure of your literary correspondent: as soon as possible. Highlight (apart from the writers, of course): the moment when my long-suffering pal and I, having escaped, spotted a municipal leisure centre and flung ourselves sweatily into its pool. That night we pulled up in the chocolate box village of Bourton-on-the-Water, got drunk in a pub and slept in the local car park. Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty we were not. MORE
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