More articles Monday 25 August 2025 3:20pm
Celebrating the 2025 Book Festival
We’re thrilled to have wrapped up a landmark year, celebrating a two-week long ‘Repair’ themed programme of events for all ages and interests, that saw conversations of global significance take place on stage, and connected both with existing audiences and a whole new generation of readers. Our 2025 festival, which hosted over 650 authors and nearly 700 events saw a remarkable 11% increase in ticket sales over the previous year, with record numbers of people enjoying the vibrant atmosphere.
Our new home at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) proved a major draw as we welcomed a whopping 161,889 people to the site over 16 days (an increase of 60% compared to 2024). We’re delighted by this surge in footfall, along with a 19% rise in first-time bookers, and a huge audience appetite for our expanded YA programme – with our new location being at the heart of the Festivals, we’re pleased to be attracting brand new audiences of all ages who have never visited us before.
Once again, The Front List strand of events, which increased from 11 in 2024 to 15 in 2025, were packed out - with over 12,000 people turning up in person at McEwan Hall to hear from writers including literary titans Ian McEwan and Maggie O’Farrell, contemporary phenomena Asuko Yuzuki and R F Kuang, political heavyweights Yulia Navalnaya and Nicola Sturgeon, and even the celebrity co-creator of beloved sitcom Gavin and Stacey, Ruth Jones.
This year also marked a cornerstone moment for Scottish independent publishers and female writers. Of the 35,000 books sold on site by Waterstones, the bestseller list was topped by standout titles from Scottish women including Mairi Kidd’s The Specimens, and event led titles including Katabasis by R F Kuang and Nicola Sturgeon’s Frankly.
Beyond the physical site we connected communities across 12 local authority areas to the Festival by streaming events, free of charge, into over 40 libraries, which in turn hosted over 90 ‘watch parties’, as part of our newly launched Paper Trails initiative. In addition, a global audience of almost 19,000 from 63 countries across five continents tuned in for streamed events, fostering conversations across geographical boundaries. And with events available for the rest of the year - and more to be added on an on-demand basis in Autumn - anyone who wasn’t able to join us on site has lots more coming to enjoy.
This year’s program was defined by timely and important discussions that reflected a public hunger for considered, informed conversations on global issues. Events such as a discussion between prominent Israeli historians Ilan Pappé and Avi Shlaim on the history of Israel and Palestine, and conversation between renowned international journalists Lindsey Hilsum and Edward Wong drew large audiences and sparked meaningful dialogue on topics of international significance, underlining the festival’s role in generating constructive in person conversations.
Our brand new, dedicated Kids’ Zone was full of families relaxing, catching up, and having fun for free, with huge queues to meet the Gruffalo, Pikachu and Supertato - and also, for the first time in Book Festival history, the real-life Princess the Unicorn. Hosting just some of the sold-out events in the Children and Families programme were Julia Donaldson, who attended with her world premiere of Paper Chase, Cressida Cowell, who hosted a record-breaking back-to-back signing, ensuring hundreds of young people left with a memory that will last a lifetime, and the iconic Michael Rosen.
And offsite, our team and writers undertook 8 prison visits, and 3 days of sessions at the Edinburgh Royal Hospital for Children and Young People and in libraries respectively, with many more writers pledging their interest in participating in this type of work to spread the power of words far beyond the Festival venues.
We couldn’t have achieved any of this without incredible authors, our fantastic partners, hardworking team, and – of course – our brilliant audiences, both in Edinburgh and across the globe. We know that countless conversations have been sparked by this year’s events, and we’re already excited to hear more about them next year.
See you then!
