Christopher Bone appointed Hay Festival publicity director

Christopher Bone, formerly senior communications manager at FMcM Associates, has been appointed to the new role of publicity director for Hay Festival. 

Bone, reporting to the festival's communications director Becky Shaw, will be responsible for overseeing UK and international PR for the organisation in its 30th anniversary year, for which there will be festivals and special projects all over the world. These include: Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias in Colombia (26th – 29th January 2017); Hay Festival Wales (25th May – 4th June 2017); Hay Festival Queretaro in Mexico (7th – 10th September 2017), Hay Festival Segovia in Spain (22nd – 24th September 2017), Hay Festival Aarhus in Denmark (26th – 29th October 2017), Hay Festival Arequipa in Peru (9th – 12th November 2017), Hay Festival Winter Weekend (1st – 3rd December 2017), and a host of special projects including the Hay Festival Press.

Bone has six years of agency experience. He started his career with Glasgow-based public affairs consultancy 3x1 PR, followed by Stripe Communications in Edinburgh. In 2014 he began working for arts communications consultancy FMcM Associates, where he represented literary organisations including National Poetry Day, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Wellcome Book Prize, Libreria bookshop, The Folio Prize, Wainwright Prize, The Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award, book titles including Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime (John Murray Press), and Hay Festival.

Shaw, welcoming Bone to the role, said: “Chris is a highly skilled publicist strategically and creatively. He will be a huge asset to Hay Festival working on our international campaign for books in our 30th anniversary year. We are thrilled to welcome him.”

Bone added: “I first visited Hay for a weekend in 2011 with no connection to the world of books (other than a love of reading). Watching talks that year with VS Naipaul, Javier Cercas, David Milliband, and Nigella Lawson, was thrilling, mind altering and changed the course of everything I have done since. Having consulted for the festival for the last two years I am thrilled to be joining the immensely talented team in house.”

Bone can be reached at Christopher@hayfestival.org.