Literature Festival gets creative with live shows to stream online
EVENTS CANCELLED DUE TO CORONAVIRUS
THE Huddersfield Literature Festival may be down but it’s definitely not out.
While the majority of live events have been cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the festival is hoping to reschedule a small number of key events for the autumn while running some online activities with some of the performers due to appear this year.
Details of the digital Mini-Fest events will be announced on social media and the HLF website over the coming days.
Online events include ‘Five Strategies to Stay Calm in the Current Crisis’ from Rachel Kelly, author of Singing in the Rain. And, from Polari authors Paul Burston and VG Lee, a Twitter Q&A – 10 Top Tips for Fiction Writing and the chance to gain professional feedback on the first page of your novel or short story. All details of these events and more will be posted on social media and on the festival website.
The festival, which was set to run from yesterday until March 29, was able to host a total of six prefestival events, including talks by Bernardine Evaristo and Lemn
Sissay and a popular Brontë Day Trip. HLF also produced an animated film and banner as part of its project, The Creative Mind.
Festival director Michelle Hodgson said: “We would have loved to have delivered our fabulous line-up of live events in full, but the safety of our performers, audiences and volunteers is paramount.
“As this year’s theme is ‘The Creative Mind,’ we decided to take a creative approach and bring some online entertainment to our audiences, while supporting some of the authors due to appear at this year’s festival.”
Halifax author Anne Choma’s talk on Gentleman Jack, scheduled for March 22, will now take place on Sunday, October 4, at 2pm, at Holmfirth Civic Hall. Ticket-holders can use their existing tickets and anyone unable to make the new date can ask for a refund by email: info@ huddlitfest.org.uk
Those with tickets booked for the Yorkshire Shepherdess Amanda Owen’s events in Holmfirth (March 20) and Marsden (March 22) should hold on to their tickets for now as the organisers are working hard to reschedule these events for the autumn.
Refunds will be offered to those who can’t make the new dates.
Magic Rock are also hoping to reschedule their festival event
The safety of our performers, audiences and volunteers is
paramount
with Dave Haslam + Guests for the autumn (free, no booking required).
Other performers may be rebooked for March 2021, depending on availability.
All other refunds will be processed in due course, with the aim being to complete this process within the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, the festival team asks for patience during this process – and for ticket-holders NOT to email busy festival staff or phone the call centre number about refunds, as this will incur unnecessary costs for the festival.
For those offering to donate their ticket money back to the festival, they can visit the Events page of the website or use this link: https://www.huddlitfest.org.uk/ event/a-donation-to-the-festival/