Midson made Port Eliot festival associate director

Colin Midson is joining The Port Eliot Festival as associate director, with immediate effect.
 
Midson will be working alongside Port Eliot Festival Directors Catherine St Germans and Simon Prosser. As well as overseeing the festival's marketing and PR campaigns, and its website and social media strategies, he will also help secure sponsorship, and programme and chair events for next year.
 
Midson has previously worked as publicity director at Bloomsbury and Granta Books, where he promoted Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries, and as a commissioning editor at Simon & Schuster. He will continue to work on other publishing projects as part of Bookshaped, his literary and PR consultancy.
 
St Germans said: ”I am thrilled that Colin has joined the Port Eliot crew. He has in fact been a part of the festival for many years as an interviewer and chair and has an innate understanding of what we are trying to achieve. We are all really excited to be working with him. It feels like Colin is joining Port Eliot at an exciting time.”
 
Midson himself said: "For the past few years Port Eliot has always marked the best weekend of the year for me, and to be working with Cathy, Simon and the team is an incredibly exciting and fulfilling opportunity.”
 
The Port Eliot Festival has been running since 2003. Last year, it had 9,000 attendees and appearances from performers including Hanif Kureishi and Shami Chakrabarti.