After Baillie Gifford: are literary festivals on their last legs?

Over the past 75 years, the idea of the book festival has become embedded in the British cultural landscape. But as costs rise sharply and reading habits change, many are finding it a struggle to survive

For the past 12 years, on one long spring weekend, the population of Chipping Norton would swell, the area’s hotels and B&Bs, taxis, pubs and cafes busied by the arrival of authors, publishers, agents and publicists. Writers made visits to local schools. Audience members puttered between the theatre and the town hall, the library, the bookshop and the Methodist church.

The decision to end ChipLitFest, the town’s annual literary festival, was announced last week. It was a lack of “confidence at this point in the year that we’ve got the resources to meet the cost of production,” its director, Jenny Dee, told the Bookseller. And then there was the fact that publishers were beginning to question the wisdom of even sending their authors to such small festivals. That Chipping Norton’s largest venue had a capacity of just 220 meant there was a limit to the money anyone could expect to make.

After Baillie Gifford: are literary festivals on their last legs?

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