Cheltenham festival sees 7% ticket sale rise

Cheltenham Literature Festival had a “record-breaking” 2014, with almost 140,000 tickets sold, up 7% from the year before.

People from all bar three UK postcodes attended the festival, and both Saturdays of the 10-day event saw more than 20,000 in attendance.

Meanwhile Waterstones, the official retailer for the festival, saw sales increase by 7% year on year.

Festival chair Gail Rebuck said: “Britain celebrates hundreds of literary festivals as an increasing digital environment drives readers and the intellectually curious to seek out points of contact with admired novelists and thinkers. Cheltenham Literature Festival 2014 lived up to its reputation as both the oldest and most diverse literary festival in Britain, a beacon of excellence and outreach into the community, offering a stellar programme of stimulating talks, readings and debates.” Festival director Jane Furze said she was "delighted and exceptionally proud" by the success of this year's event.

Rik McShane, Waterstones retail director, said: “Bookselling at Cheltenham is one of the most intensely exciting experiences you can imagine, greeting authors and customers from around the world, and being involved in events with everyone from Atwood, Ishiguro and Mantel to fledgling writers for whom the literature festival provides a first experience of meeting the readers of their books. Literature 2014 was our biggest event yet.”