First 10-day literary festival reaches growing audience

HENLEY Literary Festival saw its audience increase by
25 per cent compared with last year.

The festival, which ran from Friday, October 3 until Sunday 12, reached 46,376 people across its live performances and screened events, up from 36,844 last year.

It featured more than 150 authors, including well-known names such as Graham Norton, Michael Palin, Sathnam Sanghera and Mick Herron.

Events were held across a range of venues around the town including the town hall and the grounds of Phyllis Court and a total of 67 of 140 were sold out.

The festival put on events for a range of ages and held children’s events, featuring authors such as Cressida Cowell, Michael Morpurgo and more. Organisers reported reaching 10,500 schoolchildren online and 2,674 in person with six events in its schools programme.

It also streamed events live for 6,000 residents in 33 care homes, up from fewer than 900 last year.

Harriet Reed-Ryan, who is the festival’s event director and programmer, said that moving the festival from nine days to 10 had worked well.

She said: “Having it start on Friday evening was a great addition and we also had the Relais Henley hotel, which is a great venue.

“I feel it was the broadest programme we have had. This year it felt that there was a much wider range of events that people went to.”

Ms Reed-Ryan said that the introduction of live screening of events as a result of the covid pandemic had worked “really well” to help it expand its audience, particularly for schoolchildren.

These screenings included talks from Frank Cottrell-Boyce, the Children’s Laureate, and MC Grammar with his book The Adventures of Rap Kid.

She said: “It’s such a brilliant thing we are able to offer with the support of grants. To be able to reach 10,000 children is something we would have never been able to imagine.

“They were all such incredible quality, they were just so brilliant. So I think there was a real buzz around that side.”

Last week the Henley Standard reported that businesses experienced mixed fortunes during the festival with some blaming roadworks that closed Market Place and other works in Reading Road, New Street and Northfield End.

Ms Reed-Ryan said that while it had affected some of the festival’s logistics it did not seem to have had an impact on ticket sales.

She said: “It was a nightmare logistically for us and the authors.

“Dermot O’Leary started half an hour late as he got stuck in awful traffic on the first day but, after that, everything pretty much got started on time.

“In regard to our numbers, it didn’t seem to run them down at all.”

Ms Reed-Ryan said she was hoping to keep the festival at 10 days next year and was looking forward to marking the 20th anniversary of the festival.