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Virtual Cambridge Literary Festival pulls in over 3,000 views
The Cambridge Literary Festival, which cancelled its spring event owing to coronavirus, pulled in over 3,000 website visits with its replacement online offering, The Listening Festival.
According to the festival organisers, the site had 3,000 visits for its 15 free events from the UK, with viewers from across the globe, with most from the US, Ireland, France and Guernsey. The Cambridge Literary Festival in a normal year has around 11,000 visitors across 80 or so events.
The Listening Festival included live Q&As, pre-recorded Zoom interviews and a new podcast, as well as archived footage. David Lammy MP, Marian Keyes and children's author Robin Stevens were among the speakers.
Festival director Cathy Moore said: "The Listening Festival has provided an opportunity to knock down barriers that have prevented people from attending the festival before. We have found an international audience, an audience across the UK, and reached people locally who haven’t been able to get to the festival before, through ability, age or income."
Despite the success of the online events, the charity is still facing a "severely compromised future". The Listening Festival was a free offering and did not recoup the amount lost through ticket sales. As of Monday 20th April, two members of staff have been furloughed from the team of four.
Angela Martin, fundraising and marketing manager, said: "We are looking at all avenues for financial support so that we can continue to develop our digital offer, including Arts Council emergency funding for Non-portfolio organisations. Certainly the future of the festival and the momentum that we now have to produce digital content has significantly helped to keep our us afloat, it has attracted a lot of contact from interested parties wanting to be involved in the future."
Moore added: "CLF is a charity and relies heavily on ticket sales and we have been asking people to consider donating something to help keep us going. They can do this on the new website."
