Our client Harrogate International Festivals is delighted to announce its third Harrogate History Festival was its most successful yet with almost 3,000 tickets sold over the long weekend (22-25 October).
Dates for Harrogate History Festival 2016 have already been confirmed for 20-23 October.
Special Guests this year attracted huge queues for the events at the Old Swan Hotel and for book signing by authors Lord Melvyn Bragg, Ken Follett, Michael Morpurgo, Kate Mosse, Neil Oliver, Tracy Borman and HRH Princess Michael of Kent.
Programming Chair, Manda Scott, said: “As outgoing Chair, I couldn’t have asked for a better swan song than this year’s festival: the atmosphere was alive in ways we could only have dreamed of, and every single panel and guest created that precious buzz of interest and imagination that is the heart of a successful festival.
“As a writer, I know how hard it is to tear ourselves away from the latest work, so am always grateful when people not only give so generously of their time, but bring such generosity-of-spirit to the panels and appearances.”
Gemma Rowland, Literature Festivals Manager was delighted with the increasing interest in the Festival from history buffs: “Harrogate’s literary festivals are an essential part of the publishing calendar and the history festival is now a key date.
“Our audiences are clearly passionate about the past in novels and nonfiction and the support from them has been incredible.
“We are proud to present this inspiring festival as part our year round literary offer, which also includes the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival and Berwins Salon North series, with over 20,000 tickets sold to literature lovers every year”.
“We are honoured to have brought some luminous literary giants and hugely well-respected historians to our stage and are already busy planning next year’s Festival.”
The Festival saw readers and writers meet to discuss their joint passion for history from fact through to fiction.
The long weekend of events opened with the HWA Debut Crown for New Historical Fiction, won by Ben Fergusson for The Spring of Kasper Meier and the Harrogate History Festival’s Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction was presented to War Horse author Michael Morpurgo in a ceremony hosted by acclaimed broadcaster Mark Lawson.