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Saturday 6th April saw the inaugural Beyond the Book Festival, here in Brighton, UK. This is a festival some author friends and I put together, led by our tireless and fearsome leader, David Fennell. Although a very convincing argument could be made for the world not needing another book festival, we wanted to do something a little bit different. Ours would be cross-genre, but not elitist. We would celebrate poetry as well as prose, non-fiction as well as fiction. We wanted events aimed at both readers and writers, and we wanted people to have a good time. And although our festival was based in Brighton and we wanted to celebrate local authors, we wanted it to not be too Brighton focussed.
Others have written about the day, so that’s not what I plan to do here. Anyway, on the day itself — although I saw every event because I was helping with sound, doing the introductory housekeeping announcements and then being in charge of the roving mic — I was too busy to take much of it in (although not as busy as I’d have been had we not had a set of amazing volunteers who stepped up to help make sure that our guests got in to their seats and our authors onto the stage, at the right time, with a drink of water and sat behind the correct book).
But I did want to tell you what I learnt…
1. It takes a lot of work to put on a festival, so make sure you have good people around you.
I had the best. As well as festival director David Fennell, the board consisted of Graham Bartlett, Lizzie Enfield, Araminta Hall, me and Erin Young. All writers, so between us we’ve all attended plenty of festivals, both as audience members and guests. We knew what we wanted to do, and what we didn’t.
2. It takes a lot of time to plan a festival, so make sure you don’t decide to do it over a Christmas dinner in December and then organise it for April 6th the following year.
Which we did. But look on the bright side. It worked! Imagine how good it’ll be with a few months, rather than a few weeks, to plan it! Roll on next year.
3. There’s no accounting for train strikes or landslips.
We had several guests coming from London, and we knew about the train strikes. We thought we’d be okay, as people were talking about a reduced service, with London trains relatively unaffected. We didn’t account for the landslip that occurred on the track though, which threw things considerably.
There was some panic, but there are things you can’t plan for, so we had to take a philosophical approach. Most of our panels had 3-5 guests, so it was unlikely anything would have to be cancelled. And anyway...
4. People in the book world are conscientious and tenacious.
If they say they’re going to get to Brighton, then they manage it, despite the rail network’s best efforts. I don’t know how, but they do. Everyone turned up, on time, even for the 9.30 am panel.
Here’s the proof. At least 2 of these people came down from London, for the industry panel. And they didn’t seem that annoyed.
Only our photographer couldn’t make it, and he had a particularly tortuous journey even without the strikes and landslides, and everyone on the board thanks him for trying. (But that’s why the photos on this post are a bit shoddy).
5. People don’t do it for the money.
But you should pay them anyway. As a board, we felt very strongly that authors should be paid for their time. It’s work, after all. On a Saturday, too. Without them there’d literally be no festival. So we paid people.
Other festivals might want to take note.
6. It’s a good idea to test your sound equipment the night before.
Erin’s partner and I were in charge of sound. We knew we’d have, at best, 45 minutes to set everything up the next morning, so I popped over to their place the previous evening to plug everything in and make sure we knew how it worked, how to set it up, which leads went where and what buttons to twiddle and knobs to slide. Good job we had a practice run, as one of the channels didn’t work. This might have thrown us at 8.30am, particularly as…
7. It’s less of a good idea to go out and celebrate having checked your sound equipment.
I mean, you can’t check knobs and dials properly without a gin and tonic, right? And then when the festival director calls an emergency meeting (in a wine bar) you can’t not go, can you?
I lost count of how many alarms I set on my phone, to make sure I didn’t wake to David’s frantic, ‘It’s midday and you’re supposed to be on stage.’
8. Kathy Lette is hilarious.
I sort of knew this, having seen her on various TV shows over the years, but in person? Our headliner was a brilliant, shining, irreverent star from start to finish, and also a very lovely person. I could have listened to her talk all night. And, attendees could buy her new book, signed, a whole four weeks ahead of publication! What other festival gives you that?
9. The sense of loss when it’s over is the same as when I finish a book.
But we’re going to throw ourselves into planning next year. We’ll return even bigger and better. Watch this space!
And the 10th Thing... maybe, reading BTL, that a festival that succeeds is one that stretches the step of its ambition beyond the safe threshold of staying within some supposed comfort zone?
Seems you and your peer festivaleers got the blue touchpaper in about the write place, lit it and brought a wave of literary joy into Brighton last Saturday. I'll look out for the heads-up on next Spring's MkII.