Criminally Good Media Coverage

Cause UK had the busiest year to date handling media for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for our client Harrogate International Festivals. Considered the best event of its…

Cause UK had the busiest year to date handling media for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival for our client Harrogate International Festivals. Considered the best event of its kind in the world, the calibre of authors and reputation as one of the friendliest festivals, ensured a sell-out event.

Brenda Blethyn, pic credit: Charlotte Graham

Media work including handling the Crime Novel of the Year Awards, alongside organising author interviews with The Express, Guardian, and Daily Record.

The Guardian ran an in-depth piece online after interviewing the award winner, Chris Brookmyre, and author and judge, Elly Griffiths.

We also worked closely with the Press Association to support the story. The news reached as far afield as The Times of India.

BBC Radio York attended, as did Sky News to conduct interviews. In attendance were journalists from the Independent, the Telegraph, LA Times, Sunday Times Crime Club, Scots Magazine and BBC Radio 5 Live. We also worked with our media partner for the Awards, the Mail on Sunday.

 

This year there was a special presentation to Lee Child from a ‘Real Life Jack Reacher’, Lieutenant Colonel Mark John. The 6 foot 7 Commanding Officer of the 1st Regiment Royal Military Police, is a huge fan of his literary doppelganger, Jack Reacher. His unit organised for him to meet author Lee Child to mark his move from Catterick Garrison; ITV Calendar filmed the story.

An exclusive Agatha Christie exhibition hosted with HarperCollins also generated coverage in the Guardian, the Smithsonian, and attracted press interest from abroad including Harper’s magazine in New York. The Sunday Express attended to write a piece on the exhibit.

Lee Child, Val McDermid and Mark Billingham interviewed by Sarah Millican. Picture credit Charlotte Graham

There was a starry line-up too with appearances from actors Robson Green, Brenda Blethyn, and comedian Sarah Millican.

Local and regional coverage included interviews on the run up to the event with Stray FM, Living North magazine and the Yorkshire Post. Ann of Cause UK interviewed Ian Rankin and Antonia Hodgson for features used in the Northern Echo, York Press, Yorkshire Living, Prime magazine, Telegraph and Argus, Harrogate Advertiser and Yorkshire Life magazine.

Robson Green. Picture credit Charlotte Graham

Cause UK worked with the team from ‘writing i.e.’ to bring bloggers to the event who helped generate over 10 million impressions on Twitter over two days. Writing i.e. did over 100 tweets alone, reaching 2.1 million. The online activity was also driven by authors in attendance, including Ian Rankin, Ann Cleeves and Val McDermid, as well as invited bloggers from dedicated crime sites, such as Shots Mag, Crime Spree and Crime Fiction Lover.

Photographs by Charlotte Graham.

https://caauseuk.wpengine.com/top-crime-2015-coverage/