Festival Fever

Stirling Libraries had a very successful Off the Page Stirling Book Festival this year. The event just grows year on year. It was a very hectic week but a really worthwhile and fulfilling one. We changed tactics this year in the way of marketing and the adult working group very much took the bull by the horns to get the message out. This certainly had the desired effect.

• We contacted the local newspaper at the beginning of the year and mapped out a programme with an agreement to meet copy deadlines.The newspaper was happy to get complete copy regularly and, even now after the festival, want our reading groups to keep submitting reader centred reviews.  
• We always produce a brochure with events listed and usually rely on a company to distribute for us, but this year we drew up our own distribution list and delivered them ourselves through the Reader Development Forum in Scotland, through our Mobiles and Outreach Services, but also through our Community Libraries and Community Librarians going out to their own outlets in their areas. This was very effective and our evaluation forms reflect this.
• We held pop up events in places like Sainsbury's, Asda, Stirling's One Stop Shop and Stirling University and MacRobert Arts Centre. Staff spent an hour in these locations and took along brochures to give out to people
• One of our Children's acts, Realm Legends, took to the Thistle Marches in conjunction with Waterstones and spent some of a Saturday speaking to children and giving brochures to their parents 
• We also had banners in one of Stirling's busiest streets advertising Off the Page
• We increased our use of Social Media this year and by following our authors on Twitter, we were able to engage with them, so reaching their followers. A Google Alerts account was set up, so we knew what they were up to and if they were mentioned in the media. We were then able to put news stories on Facebook and Twitter adding that they were coming to Stirling
• We work with partners during the week and they advertised events through their contacts. Bloody Scotland, the first International Crime Writing Festival in Scotland, advertised our events in their brochures and we advertised theirs in our brochure

Here's a run through of events at our Off the Page Stirling Book Festival and is mainly a little record for myself. I haven't included the Children's programme apart from the Julia Donaldson event I attended and which was excellent!

Day 1 Billy Letford at the Smith
Off the Page kicked off with Billy(William now) Letford at the Smith art Gallery and Museum.
Tickets had been a bit slow to begin with, it is always hard to sell poetry but in the last week ticket sales were picking up. By the morning of the event, the event was sold out! However the Smith holds more than we ticketed for so we ended up taking about an extra twenty on the door. Billy himself was excellent as usual. He is a fantastic, young, performance poet who just blows everyone away!
Our Stirling Makar, Anita Govan, was at the event too, as a guest, and Billy had brought along a musician, Eddie Gerret, to provide musical interludes. Waterstones had provided books for us to sell, but had under calculated and we sold out within around three minutes!
It was a great family feel to the event with such a diverse crowd. I can highly recommend Billy!

Day 2 Sara Sheridan at the Tolbooth
Picked Sara up from the train station in the Authormobile in the afternoon. She did her Narrative Drive for our 'How to get Published' event. She even inspired me to think about taking up the pen again!
Ceilidh at night was a sell-out with people being turned away at the door. Just shows you what targeted marketing can do - this event had sold about three tickets two previously - Amazing!

Day 3 Mark Beaumont at the Tolbooth
Mark, the adventurer, had been on the Cycle for Scotland run in the morning but looked and performed fresh as a daisy - another sell out at the Tolbooth for us.

Day 4 Big Book Exchange
Radio Scotland came along to this event that we hold in partnership with the Adult Learning Team. Fame at last - well I always say I have a face for radio!
At night we had the privilege of seeing Alan Bissett perform his latest play The Red Hourglass - fantastic. He is a brilliant writer and performer.
Marianne Wheelaghan went along to a packed house in Doune to talk about her book The Blue Suitcase. What a fascinating story!

Day 5 Sally Magnusson at Strathblane Primary then at the Tolbooth
Sally spoke about her children's book Hamish and the Haggis Hunter in the afternoon and her books sold like hotcakes. At night she spoke to an adult audience about her book Life of Pee - Yes! A look at all the uses of urine over the year. I was a bit in awe of Sally to begin with, she is on the telly every night after all, but she is a lovely personality and so natural. It was a pleasure to meet her and her husband Norman Stone.
Shari low and Carmen Reid teamed up for a cupcake and chicklit feast at Dunblane Library.

Day 6 James Robertson Chaired by Richard Smith at the Tolbooth
James talked about his book And the Land Lay Still and Richard Smith was a brilliant Chair for this event. Richard used to be Reader in Residence at Cornton Vale Women's Prison. He always researches well and asked some very meaningful questions of James which gave us a good insight into this fantastic piece of work.
In the afternoon I had been along to an Artreach event where people had been working on scripts and performed them. We worked with our partners in the Adult Learning Team and Artreach Central for this.

Day 7 Off the Stanza Poetry event
The winner of the poetry competition was announced at this event hosted by Stirling's own Makar - the wonderfully talented Anita Govan and with special guest Ron Butlin.
Crime writer, Peter May, was appearing at St Ninians Library and this event was so popular that it had to be moved into the Main Hall at the Mayfield Centre.

Day 8 Julia Donaldson at the MacRobert Arts Centre
Julia Donaldson came to Stirling as part of her British Book Tour and I went along to this event mainly because one of my grandchildren was going to it. She was one of 400 children going to see Julia. Julia signed books for them all too.
At night we held a Literary Quiz in the Stirling Burgh Coffee House with questionmistress our very own Laura Griffith. Prizes were goody bags made up of library jute bags, books donated by publishers, World Book Night books, a pen, mug and a ticket for the Literary Walk!

Day 9 Literary Walk with David Kinnaird
David of Stirling Ghost Walk fame had written a Literary Walk of Stirling especially for us. This took us around the top of the old town of Stirling and was very informative, really enjoyed it! And this was our last event.

Love Your Library days were held in our Community Libraries throughout the week and Book Exchanges, coffee, cakes and chat were involved, allowing readers to celebrate their local community libraries.

What a week! Busy but satisfyingly so. In all of this, we still had to run a very busy library service. Another successful festival, now to start planning next year's!