When Writers' Festivals Go Wrong

Old Hack · Aug 1, 2012

Writers' festivals can be great. Some, not so. This one, though, seems to have been absolutely terrible. There's another report of it here.

I can't quite work out who had the worst time there: the speakers who were booked to talk to an audience which didn't appear, the audience members who turned up to find no one to listen to, or the traders who paid £100 for their places only to find no one to sell their wares to.

In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I was asked to speak at the festival but my invitation was withdrawn when I asked the organisers to clarify a few points. I had a very lucky escape.

fireluxlou · Aug 1, 2012

What were the points you asked them to clarify?

Tbh I wasn't surprised when I read the story on the first link to find out it was South Wales lol.

shadowwalker · Aug 1, 2012

Reminds me of a comic convention a couple years ago in Dallas. Some of the guests (honest to god celebrities) never even received their plane tickets to come, and the hotel where it was supposed to be held finally halted the whole thing because they hadn't gotten paid yet...

Old Hack · Aug 1, 2012

fireluxlou said:
What were the points you asked them to clarify?

Tbh I wasn't surprised when I read the story on the first link to find out it was South Wales lol.

Working from memory, as I don't have access to my older emails on this computer:

I asked them to clarify whether they were going to pay me a fee or not, and whether they would cover my expenses, as when I asked I was told something like, "all that will be sorted out".

I asked if they wanted me to give a talk, or run a workshop, and if so, how long for and on what subject.

I asked them what, precisely, they meant by "unpublished e-book author" as the e-book is a format and so if one is unpublished one can't logically also be an e-book author.

This underlines, for me, all those warnings that are given in BR&BC to not risk signing with a brand new publisher, or with an agent who has no publishing experience: let others take the risk. This was a brand-new festival, run by an author who I believe has only ever been self published (so had few connections in writing and publishing to call on for his festival), and sadly he couldn't make it work. In this case, he's lost his money: but had he failed as a publisher there could have been sad repercussions for the writers he'd signed up.

ETA: We were in south Wales last week, very close to where the festival was to be held, and came home the day before it started. We even drove past the location. And I didn't spot a single poster advertising the event, I saw nothing on the local TV news about it, and heard nothing on the radio. There was no promotional coverage for it at all, so it's perhaps not surprising that so few people turned up.

Phaeal · Aug 1, 2012

Huh. New definition of lame.

Like the first blogger, I want to know if that 10K award check bounced.

CrastersBabies · Aug 1, 2012

Maybe it's my browser, but holy cow, I could not read that blogging site because of the jumbled words.

Just reading the OP, though, sounds like mass disorganization. I've seen it happen with other "cons" and such.

fireluxlou · Aug 1, 2012

Old Hack said:
Working from memory, as I don't have access to my older emails on this computer:

I asked them to clarify whether they were going to pay me a fee or not, and whether they would cover my expenses, as when I asked I was told something like, "all that will be sorted out".

I asked if they wanted me to give a talk, or run a workshop, and if so, how long for and on what subject.

I asked them what, precisely, they meant by "unpublished e-book author" as the e-book is a format and so if one is unpublished one can't logically also be an e-book author.

This underlines, for me, all those warnings that are given in BR&BC to not risk signing with a brand new publisher, or with an agent who has no publishing experience: let others take the risk. This was a brand-new festival, run by an author who I believe has only ever been self published (so had few connections in writing and publishing to call on for his festival), and sadly he couldn't make it work. In this case, he's lost his money: but had he failed as a publisher there could have been sad repercussions for the writers he'd signed up.

ETA: We were in south Wales last week, very close to where the festival was to be held, and came home the day before it started. We even drove past the location. And I didn't spot a single poster advertising the event, I saw nothing on the local TV news about it, and heard nothing on the radio. There was no promotional coverage for it at all, so it's perhaps not surprising that so few people turned up.

That makes sense

. They sound so unprepared and over anticipating the turn out. 1st it was Olympic Opening weekend. 2nd. They have it in a really bad place 3. They change way too high fees 4. They are very unprofessional with authors and promotion.

Being in South Wales and living here you usually hear about festivals book or otherwise going on well in advance, usually hyped up, posters every where.

The closest book festival to me as I live in South Wales is the Hay on Wye Festival. That gets extensive coverage and is heavily promoted every year. There's always adverts in the local paper for it. Even in the local town business magazine. If not there's word of mouth. You hear about these festivals usually from South Wales News which I watch every evening and there's no mention of this festival anywhere. Search for it and there's barely any news articles.

From the sounds of the comments on the blog people think this was just ego stroking.

Theo81 · Aug 1, 2012

Somebody links to a story about the organiser in the Western Mail in the comments of that first post.

He said that since the 1950s there had not been “one single Welsh writer of any national or international note”.

Martin Amis is technically Welsh as he was born in Wales, but he's not really a Welsh writer, so I guess we can discount him, along with Roald Dahl (who is from Llandaff in Cardiff) and instead focus on folks like Joe Dunthorne (author of Submarine), Ken Follett, Dick Francis, Niall Griffiths, Jan Morris, Allison Pearson (author of I Don't Knot How She Does It) and Philip Pullman. Welsh writers: representing pretty much every genre out there.

That he didn't know that speaks volumes.

The thing to remember is that Wales is *tiny*. It has 3 million people in it. That's slightly more than the city of Chicago. It takes some talent to do anything at all there and not have it end up on the local news. Really.

fireluxlou · Aug 1, 2012

Yea and the Welsh news always mentions local festivals all the time so how he didn't get on the BBC site let alone the Welsh News, that is amazing in itself.

I wonder if he invited Owen Sheers or Jenny Sullivan.

Shakesbear · Aug 1, 2012

How miserable for you!

£10,000 is a good prize for a new writers competition - consider that it is one fifth of the Booker prize. I cannot help but wonder where the money came from or how it was raised. A friend and self organized a Christmas Fair last year and we both made a reasonable profit from it. Which makes me wonder a lot of stuff about this event. To be able to give away such a prize the profits from the festival had to be substantial or come out of his pocket. Or, as it has already been said, the organiser specializes in rubber cheques.

Bogna · Aug 1, 2012

CrastersBabies said:
Maybe it's my browser, but holy cow, I could not read that blogging site because of the jumbled words.

Just reading the OP, though, sounds like mass disorganization. I've seen it happen with other "cons" and such.

I couldn't read it either. I ended up giving up and looking at other blogs.

Old Hack · Aug 2, 2012

Someone has explained why the festival was so poorly attended.

It clashed with the Caerphilly Cheese Festival.

That must be it.

James D. Macdonald · Aug 2, 2012

Theo81 said:
That he didn't know that speaks volumes.

When enumerating Welsh writers let's not forget the Multi-Award-Winning, Welsh-speaking, born in Aberdare, Jo Walton.

(This entire debacle reminds me of the Camelot Fair at Shamrock Cliffs in Newport, Rhode Island, lo! these forty years ago.)

Sharii · Aug 2, 2012

Old Hack said:
Someone has explained why the festival was so poorly attended.

It clashed with the Caerphilly Cheese Festival.

That must be it.

Cheese is a serious bzness.

Polenth · Aug 2, 2012

Sharii said:
Cheese is a serious bzness.

Free cheese and fairground rides! They probably had facepainting too.

But on the ebook festival, allegedly it's going to run next year. Maybe they're banking on the train wreck angle as advertising.

James D. Macdonald · Aug 3, 2012

Bogna said:
I couldn't read it either. I ended up giving up and looking at other blogs.

The website design is a trainwreck, I admit.

It's worth reading, though, since it's the first-person account of one of the people short-listed for the award who was present at the awards ceremony itself.

Tricks like selecting the text in order to highlight it might help.

bearilou · Aug 5, 2012

Wow. Tin Larrick's account was really banging on my second-hand embarrassment squicks.

That's just...tragically, pathetically sad.

juniper · Aug 5, 2012

James D. Macdonald said:
The website design is a trainwreck, I admit.

It's worth reading, though, since it's the first-person account of one of the people short-listed for the award who was present at the awards ceremony itself.

Tricks like selecting the text in order to highlight it might help.

I didn't have any trouble with it at all - I'm using Safari as browser and everything looks tidy. No jumbled words, no odd design - ?

And what a sad account, taking his family out for a fun event honoring him and it turning out like that.

Pinguicha · Aug 5, 2012

Completely novice question, but... what exactly are writers' festivals for? Showcasing your work? Contact with agents? We have nothing of the sort here...

Old Hack · Aug 5, 2012

A good writers' festival has a series of workshops, lectures and discussions which the attendees can take part in, and usually at least one party where everyone can network. There are usually several writers of note, a handful of agents, and a whole bunch of editors and publishers. They can be wonderful. But, as is shown here, they can also be utterly dreadful.

Pinguicha · Aug 5, 2012

Ah. Thanks for explaining

bettielee · Aug 6, 2012

juniper said:
I didn't have any trouble with it at all - I'm using Safari as browser and everything looks tidy. No jumbled words, no odd design - ?

And what a sad account, taking his family out for a fun event honoring him and it turning out like that.

same here, and also on Safari

Wow. What a terrible shame. And the unprofessional manner of the organizers... making people feel bad about showing up? Not cool.

blacbird · Aug 6, 2012

For about ten years I traveled to attend major writers' conventions in various localities. These were all major events, and not cheap. I quite doing so after attending one in southern California at which I met Ray Bradbury, Charles Schulz and William Styron, but which also turned out to be a love-fest for local writers, and utterly hostile to outsiders. Haven't been tempted to attend one since.

caw

Xelebes · Aug 6, 2012

Old Hack said:
Someone has explained why the festival was so poorly attended.

It clashed with the Caerphilly Cheese Festival.

That must be it.

Well, at least James McIntyre would have agreed with him.

seun · Aug 6, 2012

Old Hack said:
Someone has explained why the festival was so poorly attended.

It clashed with the Caerphilly Cheese Festival.

That must be it.

Damn it. How did I miss this?

When Writers' Festivals Go Wrong

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