Chelt Lit Fest 2024: Sell Out Tickets and Authors

Full-time volunteer at this year’s Literature Festival, Giorgia Caso believes the most anticipated authors are Asako Yuzuki, Matt Haig and David Nicholls. She said, “I feel very lucky to be able to work at the Literature Festival and also indirectly attend events with great authors, among them a few of my favourites as well, including Elif Shafak and R.F. Kuang, which make the whole experience more exciting.”

Stars like Miriam Margolyes, Judi Dench, Alison Steadman, Trevor McDonald, Rick Astley, Lorraine Kelly and many more, are some of the exciting names to look forward to over the next ten days.

However, some people may not be quite so lucky in getting the chance to see their favourite authors such as GLTwenties’ Literature Reporter, Iona Leaf, who said, “I was really hoping to see R. F. Kuang at the Lit Fest this year. I even set a reminder in my calendar for the fifth of September (the date of ticket sale) to remind me to buy tickets, but when I logged on at 10am, all of the tickets were already sold out during the pre-sale priority!” Kuang’s event is one of the most anticipated this year due to the rise of her fame via TikTok. Lots of BookTokkers have taken to promoting her novels, with raving reviews that allowed her novel, Babel, to become a #1 New York Times bestseller and nominated for the World Fantasy Award.

Her latest book, Yellowface, was published in May last year and has been described as a satirical piece describing racial diversity in the publishing industry, reaching fame on social media. Allowing her to gain over 630,755 ratings on GoodReads which led to the book becoming the Winner for Best Fiction of the GoodReads Choice Award 2023.

Many keen festival-goers who are Waterstones members, also had the opportunity to gain priority booking for the Lit Fest. Tickets for this went on sale on August 31st, meaning that events like R.F. Kuang, as Iona mentioned, were already sold out before general release.

Tickets selling fast isn’t the only concern this year, with some of the events, including Boris Johnson’s, costing as much as £50. The price of tickets this year has meant that a lot of students were “priced out,” with 100% of our readers agreeing that they were unable to afford tickets.

The Cheltenham Festivals website says, “We don't offer any discount or concessions apart from 10% on group bookings over 10 people.”

But, for those interested in attending more than one event, with the Festival Weekender Wristband, you can go to as many events across the final weekend of the Festival, for just £30.

Despite the lack of discounts, there are many free events for attendees to get involved with, many of which will be held at the VoiceBox. Every year there is an event where contributors to the Student Anthology, this year with a digital version (Virtually) Unbreakable, give readings of their poems and stories. This year's event is on Thursday 10th October, starting at 7.45pm. Students at the University of Gloucestershire will be anticipating this event with many English and Creative Writing students being involved with the readings. Journalism students will be interviewing the authors on stage.

Yet, it is comforting to know that after the recent Oasis dramatics, attendees and ticket buyers at the festival don’t have to worry about concerns of dynamic pricing. Whilst some tickets, like the Boris Johnson event, are quite expensive – with entrance costing £50, all ticket prices have remained the same throughout sale even for priority members.

For Boris Johnson, despite his high profile, his event seems to be struggling with 53% of tickets remaining unsold. Whereas authors like Richard Osman, Matt Haig and R.F. Kuang seem to be bringing in wider audiences. This could be due to ticket prices costing less than £50 or possibly due to the fact that people aren’t wishing to associate with Boris’ political agenda. To find out more about what political events are at the festival this year, read ‘Prime Minister’s Time in Office: In Their Own Words.