Lincoln's seventh book festival is saved!

The seventh annual Lincoln Book Festival will return to the city in May 2010 (12^th to 16^th) thanks to a group of organisations who have worked together to ensure it will go ahead despite funding problems.

The future of the festival, which is one of the city’s main cultural events and attracts around 7,000 visitors, had been in doubt following a review of the City of Lincoln Council’s tourism, marketing and arts services. But negotiations between the City Council, the Lincolnshire Echo, Visit Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire County Council and other partners have resulted in the Book Festival being saved for 2010, and possible future years.

"We’re delighted the book festival has been saved," said Jon Grubb - Editor of the Lincolnshire Echo, who have been long time partners of the City Council in the festival. "The next stage is for local residents to put the date in the diary and support the festival because it will bring an array of talents to Lincoln from award winning journalists and authors, to comics and play writers. "

Councillor Keith Weaver, Portfolio Holder for Health and Recreational Services at the City of Lincoln Council said:

"The Book Festival is an important part of the city’s calendar, however we reluctantly had to prioritise other services as part of our challenge to save £2.5 million.  However, we are still providing significant funding for this year’s event and are glad the partnership has made the festival so successful resulting in it being saved for this year. We are also pleased that the knowledge and skills of our former arts officer Sara Bullimore are being combined with that of David Lambert from Lincoln-based Cultural Solutions to ensure that the festival has a strong footing."

Penny Baker Chief Executive of Visit Lincolnshire added The Book Festival is such a popular event among local residents and visitors we couldn’t see it disappear. A lot of hard work has been done behind the scenes to save it for 2010 with the Book Festival team.

Ongoing negotiations have been made with the Arts Council England, the national development agency for arts in England to secure funding for the 2010 and 2011 festival.

"There is still a lot of work to be done," said Sara Bullimore Artistic Director for the book festival project team. "We are looking for sponsorship from local businesses, and support from the public who can support the event by joining as Friends of the Book Festival. Getting this far is a major achievement but we now need local support and sponsorship to deliver the plans we have."

"Lincolnshire has a long standing historical connection with literature because the county is the birth place of the Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson. If Tennyson were alive today I’d like to think he would be joining our celebrations for saving the Lincoln Book Festival," finished Jon Grubb.