Festivals and events

“Festivals are how the city tells itself what is important.” Organiser  

Book and literary festivals have proliferated around the country in a way that year-round event programmes have not. There are many players in this space – including subsidised and commercially driven festival producers and those creating community and grassroots events. Many festivals use a mix of these models. Some festivals are focused on tourism and attracting inward visitors; others see themselves as serving and representing local writers and communities. A good festival should be a mix of both.  

Festivals work in several ways in the literary ecology: they platform and present local talent; they often contain writer development and reading development activities; they inspire through invited guests from across the country and beyond, bringing new perspectives and horizons; they are an opportunity to commission new work, generating debate and discussion about issues or themes that resonate with local people; and they gather audiences old and new for writing. They often also animate and use unusual venues or support pop-up activities.  

West Yorkshire has three regularly subsidised and resilient book festivals in Ilkley, Bradford and Huddersfield that are either NPOs or in receipt of regular Arts Council funding.  

Leeds has Leeds Lit Fest and Leeds Poetry Festival, both minimally project funded, self- subsidising events run by people who are not salaried or fully recompensed as freelancers to organise them. The lack of time and resources available impacts on sustainability and the development of deeper and wider partnership possibilities and audience development building year-to-year.  

Leeds Lit Festival was mentioned regularly as a positive project across our research. It has played a strong role in engaging with writers and organisations across the city, on limited resources. The festival produces around 50 to 60 events, with the majority taking place in venues such as Hyde Park Book Club, The Leeds Library, Leeds City Library and the Carriageworks. A children’s programme is produced with Leeds Central Library.  

Leeds Lit Fest has developed from the collectively run Leeds Big Bookend, set up by Fiona Gell and others and running in partnership with The Leeds Library, Leeds Church Institute, Leeds Central Library, Hyde Park Book Club and the Carriageworks into a substantial programme of events produced by a regular partnership of promoters, venues, and libraries who each carry a part of the financial risk of events. The development of the Lit Fest is a success story for the city and should be acknowledged as such.  

Fiona Gell suggested that making events happen is more difficult now, as commercial imperatives mean that venues now often have to charge unaffordable prices for space and venue rental.  

The Leeds City Council Arts@Leeds funding also changed, asking applicants to demonstrate increased income to a specific level as a gateway criterion to application. This meant the Big Bookend couldn’t apply after previous successes with the fund.  

The lack of significant grant support to enable sustainability has meant that Leeds Lit Fest has become the responsibility of a group of volunteer promoters and literature employees with other jobs and responsibilities. The festival had some success with Arts Council funding in 2020 but partners find it a time-consuming process to submit funding applications that meet the needs of Arts Council England priorities whilst continuing with their every day jobs, and success is not guaranteed. In 2023 the festival was helped by a late grant from Leeds 2023 which was used to bring in more high-profile performers such as Lemn Sissay and Sudha Buchar.  

Generally, most of the financial risk for the festival is carried by the partners. This means the infrastructure to deliver the festival to its full potential, as a focus for the city’s readers and writers, is limited. The festival partners are currently working on plans to establish a stand-alone organisation to run the festival, possibly a CIC.  

Poppy Jennings runs Leeds Poetry Festival, supported by Left Bank Arts/Community Centre in Leeds. The festival champions the vibrant spoken-word scene in Leeds and presents a range of UK poets. They platform unpublished poets alongside well-known names. In addition, 80 people attend her monthly open-mic night at the venue. Poppy runs the events on a voluntary basis, with small grants from Leeds Inspired (which she finds easy to apply for). She has just been turned down for a £3K grant by Arts Council England. Poppy represents great access to grassroots activity and works in the L6 area, which also includes Hyde Park Book Club and the Social Club. She notes that these organisations support each other and make this area a hotspot for activity. Leeds Poetry Festival has a young, energetic producer with a good local support network around her and is growing to be an interesting event reflective of, and supporting, the vibrant spoken-word scene in Leeds and poetry on and off the page.  

The key venues for literary festival activities and events are Hyde Park Book Club, Left Bank, Chapel FM, Leeds City Library, Leeds Carriageworks and Leeds Library. Little interaction or partnership work has taken place with bigger venues or NPOs such as Leeds Playhouse or Opera North, who both have excellent venues for literary events. The scale of risk for the current festival organisers probably discourages this level of partnership, but there is potentially an important role for these venues in supporting the growth of literature events and supporting their producers.  

In 2023, the BBC’s Contains Strong Language spoken-word poetry festival will take place in Leeds. Although this will play to the city’s strengths and highlight literature as part of the year of culture, it is an event that moves around the country. It may, however, demonstrate what might be possible in Leeds in terms of the approach to broad programming and accessible and diverse approaches to content.  

Both Leeds Lit and Leeds Poetry festivals are worthy of more support and development. Both need serious investment in capacity, business development and fundraising to become sustainable and resilient. Both festivals have talented programmers and promoters within their ranks who could be invested in.  

Throughout our research we asked interviewees about audiences, how well attended their events were, what the geographical reach of events was like and how audience data was used and held. Most data for festivals and events was held by the bodies organising them, or by the partners (venues and others) in those events. Leeds Library Service and the independent The Leeds Library have over 300,000 members between them. Leeds 2023 has been the biggest promoter of literary events in the city in the past year and will have their own data drawn from their events.  

Thinking ahead, a shared project to explore the potential pooling and future sharing of audience data for literature audiences could be useful. For instance capturing audience data for the Contains Strong Language will be important for the National Poetry Centre but also potentially for Leeds Poetry Festival. Collaboration around audience development, especially for poetry and spoken word would be useful to all involved with promoting and growing audiences for literature in the city and region.  

Leeds Poetry Festival is an annual festival championing the vibrant and expansive spoken-word scene in Leeds. Currently in its third year, the festival comprises a wide variety of activity including readings, workshops, performances, exhibits, and collaborative events. The festival platforms both established and emerging writers, providing a space for people to foster connections and discover the thriving network of spoken word in the city. Leeds Poetry Festival has received funding from Leeds Inspired and is supported by Left Bank Leeds.  

Leeds Poetry Festival draws on the pre-existing networks that sustain the city’s spoken- word scene, collaborating with organisations and events that run year-round. The festival offers attendees the opportunity to connect with those networks and forge new ones. Events showcase local talent from Leeds and Yorkshire. Local performers are also a main feature of the festival’s Poetry on the Aire podcast, where hosts Poppy Jennings and Jack Collins meet with local talent to “celebrate all things poetic in the city”. Recorded during the festival, each episode covers a different topic and features local performers and poets.  

“Poets and writers in Leeds are so supportive of each other. They treat each other like family.” Poppy Jennings  

Accessibility is central to the festival’s ethos and the organisers ensure that there are minimal barriers to attending and participating in events. Many events are free or pay what you can, and this year, the festival will feature a Poetry Bistro featuring a pay-as- you-feel three-course meal at Rainbow Junction. The majority of events are livestreamed, broadening accessibility for all. Poetry and performance workshops provide a supportive space for attendees to hone their writing and performance ability in various ways, and open mic nights allow both emerging and established artists to share their work in a welcoming and encouraging environment. Writers also have the opportunity to be published through the Poetry Competition which each year publishes an anthology of new work celebrating life in Leeds.  

Leeds Poetry Festival primarily runs at Left Bank arts and community centre in Leeds, a lively venue in a former church that promotes a range of art forms. Events also run at other key literary venues in the city, including Hyde Park Book Club and Chapel FM. The festival collaborates with other literature organisations across the city, such as spoken- word record label Nymphs and Thugs, and annual literature festival Leeds Lit Fest.  

The festival website offers an array of helpful resources, including the Leeds Poetry Calendar, which lists poetry events and opportunities throughout the year. The festival also runs On the Mic, a monthly open mic event at Left Bank Leeds that is open to all writers who wish to share their work in a welcoming and supportive space.