2006 News Archive

29 August 2006

2006 most successful year ever for Book Festival

This year's Edinburgh International Book Festival has been the most successful ever, with almost 60% of events completely sold out, the Festival running at 75% capacity, and ticket sales up 8% from last year.

Over 65% of all tickets were sold before the start of the festival, making this year the fastest selling and most successful festival in its 23-year history.

Catherine Lockerbie, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival says: "This has been a remarkable year for the Book Festival. We have had an unprecedented response, with capacity audiences not just for world-renowned writers and thinkers, but also for new and international authors little known in the UK. Our political discussions have seen an extraordinarily high quality of public engagement with issues ranging from the roots of terrorism and the situation in the Middle East, to climate change and the ethics of cloning. The Book Festival provides a unique forum for the exchange of ideas and people are seizing the opportunities we offer in ever-greater numbers."

Highlights of this year's programme included:

A record three Nobel Prize winners took part in this year's festival: Harold Pinter, Seamus Heaney and Joseph Stiglitz.

Harold Pinter announced that his writing days were over to a packed audience in an event that sold out almost immediately. "At the moment, I think I have written myself out", he said, while strongly condemning British and American policy in the Middle East.

Al Gore, former Vice-President of the United States, a late addition to the programme, was in Edinburgh to discuss the threat posed by climate change and declared: "I will bet that in the next two years, George W Bush will have changed his mind about global warming.

"I have an ally on this - reality"

A total of 35 different countries were represented, from Iran to the USA, Germany to India and Israel to Kenya.

There were over 200 Scottish authors represented, including William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson and Andrew O'Hagan; all launched their new novels at the Book Festival.

Children's and School's Programme highlights:

In a first for the Book Festival, Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy from Franz Ferdinand gave a master class on songwriting to a packed teenage audience.

A total of 150 schools took advantage of the Festival's ever-popular Schools Programme and over 12,000 pupils attended schools events with authors such as Malorie Blackman, Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo and Anne Fine.

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