Byron Writers Festival attendance up 18%

The 2024 Byron Writers Festival, which ran from 9 to 11 August, was a ‘great success’, according to organisers.

The festival reported an 18% increase on the previous year’s box office takings, with the 2024 festival, themed ‘From the ground up’, attracting close to 10,000 attendees.

This year’s event included 130 sessions on the festival grounds, five workshops, eight feature and satellite events, and a two-day schools program for primary and secondary students.

The top 10 selling books (in order) at festival bookstore The Book Room Collective were:

1. The Alternatives (Caoilinn Hughes, Oneworld)
2. Question 7 (Richard Flanagan, Penguin)
3. Balcony over Jerusalem (John Lyon, HarperCollins)
4. The Forever War: America’s unending conflict with itself (Nick Bryant, Viking)
5. Thera (Bob Brown, Bob Brown Foundation)
6. Stone Yard Devotional (Charlotte Wood, A&U)
7. The Forest Wars: The ugly truth about what’s happening in our tall forests (David Lindenmayer, A&U)
8. Bright Shining: How grace changes everything (Julia Baird, Fourth Estate)
9. Prima Facie (Suzie Miller, Picador)
10. Sassafras (Rebecca Huntley, Hachette)
11. Lola in the Mirror (Trent Dalton, Fourth Estate) and The Road to the Country (Chigozie Obioma, Hutchinson Heinemann).

‘Bob Brown was a star of the festival, with a sold-out evening feature event with Jan Fran, plus a packed crowd for the panel discussion “For The Earth” with Richard Flanagan, David Lindenmayer, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Sue Higginson, which received a standing ovation, as did John Lyons discussing Balcony over Jerusalem,’ said the festival, also highlighting Kon Karapanagiotidis’s Greek cookbook A Seat at My Table: Philoxenia (Hardie Grant), which sold well ‘to overjoyed crowds, as did Bundjalung chef and restaurateur Mindy Woods’s Karkalla At Home’ (Murdoch Books), among other popular authors.

New Byron Writers Festival artistic director Jessica Alice said she was ‘thrilled’ with her first festival. ‘It was a joy to bring some of the world’s best writers to the festival and see so many delighted readers in packed marquees, enjoying stimulating conversations and great vibes,’ said Alice.

Category: Local news