Planning has already started for the Everybody’s Reading 2020 festival after the success of this year’s record-breaking event across Leicester.
It was the 10th year of the festival and organised by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) for the first time, with 147 events taking place at 64 different venues across all 31 days of October.
The 2019 festival had been expanded from the previous year, which had 100 events taking place over just nine days during 2018.
The festival saw everything from comedy workshops to children’s book celebrations and talks by authors to poetry reading events. There were 20 events across the De Montfort University campus alone.
Events were also staged at Leicester Prison, a series of local libraries, pubs, New Walk Museum, Leicester Guildhall, neighbourhood centres in the city and also at the University of Leicester.
The events were also staged in all parts of the city from Beaumont Leys to Thurnby Lodge and St Matthews to Hamilton and all areas in between.
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Peter Flack, the chair of the Everybody’s Reading Steering Group, said: “The event this year - on our 10th anniversary - has surpassed our expectations, particular as at one stage, before De Montfort University stepped in, there was a danger it would not take place at all.
“What has delighted me this year is the range and diversity of the events that have taken place. It has been a really successful festival and I would like to thank everyone involved.”
The event organiser at De Montfort University, Jess Bogic, said: “We are delighted with the way everything went with the festival, especially as we had a short timeframe after taking the event on so late.
“We have already started planning for the 2020 Everybody’s Reading festival and looking to see how we can make it bigger and better than this year.”
The event was officially opened by the well-known children’s author Bali Rai, who is from Leicester, who said at the launch: “This festival is about getting the city reading. It is an amazing event and I was delighted to be involved.”
Posted on Monday 18 November 2019