Book festival takes off with airport-style crowd scenes

Published on Saturday 21 June 2008 00:31

BOOK lovers went into a buying frenzy yesterday when the box office for the Edinburgh International Book Festival opened.

In the first hour there were 300,000 hits on the festival's website and 21,000 telephone calls, as popular speakers including Sir Sean Connery sold out in minutes.

"Literature is the new rock'n'roll," said Kath Mainland, the book festival's administrative director, speaking at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, where the festival set up its over-the-counter sales for the first time this year.

While about 20 staff were selling tickets over the counter, 345 people queued from as early as 6:30am to be at the doors when they opened at 10am. By early afternoon yesterday, many had waited four hours or more for their number to be called.

The scene at the EICC was like an airport or a bingo hall. Determined to avoid a repeat of 2007 when a new ticketing system temporarily failed, festival organisers laid on coffee, comfy chairs and even a children's area to ease the strain of queuing. Television screens showed which of more than 700 sessions had sold out through the morning. Connery's session on his co-written book sold out within about 40 minutes, with Alex Salmond, Margaret Atwood and Ian Rankin soon following, along with writers' workshops.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a typical announcement. "Can I have your attention please? Marketing and promoting yourself as a writer on 14 August at 2pm is now sold out."

Gil Livingston, a retired journalist, arrived at 10:10am, ten minutes after sales began. Given number 285, with customers called in batches of 20, she was expecting to wait until 5pm. Her friend, David Dix-Perkin, had gone home to bring smoked salmon sandwiches.

"This is our list, and all these people have been crossed off already," she said, showing a forlorn piece of paper. "It's scary." Having missed out on several big names, she was holding out hope for Gavin Esler and Kate Adie.

"It seems a great shame that these people who come up and talk can't do it for another day as well," she said. "They could sell it two or three times over.

"It is very well run. I'm complaining because the speakers have been sold out too soon. It's not fair. This is the first day."

Peter Lomax, from Edinburgh, was first in the queue at EICC at 6:30am, picking up tickets for Salman Rushdie, Richard Dawkins and Sean Connery.

Customers are allowed to buy up to four tickets for an unlimited number of events.

Readers rush to meet the author

PEOPLE are increasingly buying their books on the internet from sites such as Amazon or those of other booksellers.

But more and more they seem to crave personal contact with authors, creating a rush for book festivals and author appearances akin to those for live music events.

Over the seven years that Catherine Lockerbie has been its director, the Edinburgh International Book Festival has more than doubled in size. It is a similar story around Britain, as book festivals from Melrose to Hay-on-Wye have provoked huge demand.

This year Edinburgh's festival has grown again, with more than 800 authors, including Salman Rushdie, Alan Sillitoe, Menzies Campbell and Louis de Bernires.

"We are the biggest in the world," Ms Lockerbie said. "We didn't intend to make it bigger."

The festival put "really significant financial investment" into opening the temporary box office at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre this weekend. Roads were dug up to lay cables for its internet server, with the on-line ticketing system revamped to increase the number of simultaneous users. Even that did not prevent hours of queuing yesterday.

Ms Lockerbie said the growth of the internet has increased the importance of the live event. "People long for this authentic interchange," she said. "They want to access the original source. Books have their origin in storytelling, and books are a shared human activity."

Book festivals have mushroomed in number and size, said the Canongate publisher Jamie Byng.

"In the music business the growth of live events is partly because artists now make much less from the sales," he said. "The author tour, the success of author appearances, is mirrored by the increased success of live bands going on the road, and playing for bigger audiences than ever before.

"People want that kind of live thing. Maybe it's a reaction to the fact that there's less and less human interaction on the internet. The big websites are selling a hell of a lot, and that's as an impersonal experience as you can get buying books."

The Birlinn publisher, Hugh Andrew, sounded a note of warning yesterday. The country is entering a retail recession, he said, and the book sector is as worried as any.

But he added: "In Edinburgh last year the weather was terrible but the festival had fantastic sales performance. I have high hopes this year."

TOP TEN

SALES started on the internet, and over the counter at 10am. The top ten hot tickets sold out in less than three hours. They were:

&#149 Sean Connery, about 10:45

&#149 Fantastical Beasts, 11:02

&#149 Kathleen Jamie et al, 11:06

&#149 Where Wild Things Are, 11:08

&#149 Novel Writing, 11:42

&#149 Tony Benn, 12:26

&#149 Alan Johnston, 12:29

&#149 Alex Salmond, 12:38

&#149 Selkie Stories & Crafts, 12:51

&#149 Reginald Hill, 12:57