Bondholders urged to back Derby Book Festival

The organisers of this year’s Derby Book Festival are appealing to the business community for support by offering sponsorship packages for individual events.

The city’s popular literary event, running from May 19 to 27 attracts well-known authors and poets to Derby to talk about their recently released publications.

The festival is organised in partnership with all the major arts and cultural partners in the city with funding from the Arts Council England, the University of Derby and several businesses and individuals across the city.

But for the event to grow and compete with long-established festivals such as Cheltenham, Chiswick or Hay, organisers need financial backing from firms in the city who are looking for interesting ways to build their own brands.

Festival organiser Sian Hoyle said: “Not everyone realises that Derby Book Festival is actually a registered charity and, as such, we rely on grants and funding to enable us to continue bringing authors to the city.

“In recent years, we have had brilliant support from many organisations – such as Smith Partnership, Dains, Geldards and Cosy Direct – but for the festival to continue to grow we would welcome additional business partners.

“It will give local firms the chance to reach a different audience, by featuring on our website, displaying their pop-up banners on stage and introducing the authors, and won’t just help us to continue bringing inspirational authors to the city, but will allow us to extend our outreach work.”

Although the festival is held twice a year in the city, its work continues in the community year-round, fostering a love of reading and writing poetry, fiction and prose.

It engages with children, students and staff at primary and secondary schools, Derby College Group and the University of Derby, offering opportunities to meet authors, explore new books and create their own stories and illustrations.

It also runs a shared reading project enabling people in care homes, hospital, prisons, libraries and community centres to listen to and share their thoughts about poetry, lyrics, letters and diaries at weekly and fortnightly sessions.

Sian said: “The aim of the festival is to bring the joy of books into the heart of the communities that we serve and, with that in mind, the festival has been created with inclusivity and accessibility at the forefront.

“We would be delighted to hear from any companies in Derby or Derbyshire that would be happy to use some of their CSR budget to support the work we are doing.”

Tickets for individual events go on sale on April 4 and will be available here.

For information about sponsorship opportunities for this year’s events, e-mail Sian at sian@derbybookfestival.co.uk.