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Ticket and book sales up at 2014 Byron Bay Writers Festival, ‘extraordinary’ effort for ILF

Ticket sales at the 2014 Byron Bay Writers Festival (BBWF), which ran from 1 to 3 August,  increased by 21% compared to last year, with many sessions selling out. The festival bookshop also reported its best year of sales.

The festival had a total of 62,132 attendees, up by 20% on last year, which included attendees at the primary and secondary schools days, main festival days, feature events and workshops.

Festival director Edwina Johnson said she was thrilled that her first festival program was so well received by the local and wider community. ‘The whole event ran incredibly smoothly, our volunteers once again doing Byron proud,’ said Johnson in a statement.

The audience for Jeanette Winterson’s keynote address was larger than expected and the festival had to provide extra seating at the back of the marquee. Winterson’s speech ‘moved many to tears,’ said Johnson. ‘She received a rousing standing ovation and afterwards, the book-signing queue stretched out and around the bookshop.’

Local indigenous spokesperson Delta Kay gave a ‘welcome to country’ address on the opening night of the festival, which Johnson said was ‘incredibly moving’. ‘Tim Eddy’s short film summarising our Five Writers, Five Towns in Five Days regional literary tour was a triumph. People didn’t want to leave,’ said Johnson.

More than 1000 people attended sessions with former Greens leader Bob Brown, while a session with Malcolm Fraser in conversation with Kerry O’Brien attracted the largest audience of the festival. Other popular sessions included Dream Boat Refugees with Julian Burnside and David Marr; Idiot Boxing with Andrew Denton and Andrew Knight; and the Ocean is Broken with Tim Flannery, Lisa-ann Gershwin and Ian Hoskins.

Johnson said nearly all of the off-site feature events sold out. ‘We were still being inundated with requests to attend the sold out Liner Notes as we opened the doors. It was the talk of the Festival on Saturday morning—a brilliant literary cabaret led by the hugely talented Michael Nolan.’

‘Extraordinary’ fundraising for Indigenous Literacy Foundation

BBWF partnered with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) as its charity this year and reports it raised a total of $5686.70 for the foundation.

‘We collected a total of $5195.55 from donation boxes during the three days of the festival,’ Johnson told Books+Publishing.  The festival also ran a raffle that raised the additional funds. ILF founder Suzy Wilson said the fundraising effort was ‘extraordinary’.

 

Category: Local news