Stanfords Travel Writers Festival goes digital with Winn and Dalrymple

The Stanfords Travel Writers Festival is going digital this year with a line-up including Raynor Winn (pictured), William Dalrymple, James Naughtie and Simon Reeve.

From 28th January to 4th February, people will be able to watch more than 20 talks for free on the Stanfords website. All the books discussed will be available to buy from the retailer, many of them signed by the authors.

The fully digital festival is a first for Stanfords, which normally sets up stage at Destinations: The Holiday & Travel Show at Olympia.

Vivien Godfrey, chairman and c.e.o., said: “As well as the Stanfords Travel Writers Festival and the Edward Stanfords Travel Writing Awards, Stanfords supports travel writers throughout the year with live events, book launches and signings. While live events have been cancelled, there have been so many great travel books published this year and we wanted to make sure the authors were given the platform to talk about them. We are delighted that we are able to go ahead with the Stanfords Travel Writers Festival as our first foray into digital events.”

The festival follows a successful appeal for funds last year after reduced London footfall put the future of the retailer's Covent Garden store in jeopardy. Godfrey said money raised through that crowdfunder helped make the digital event possible.

She said: “Our recent crowdfunding efforts were more successful than we could have dreamt. We said if we raised more than our target we would use the extra funds towards a few projects, including this digital version of our Stanfords Travel Writers Festival. As a thank you to everyone, we are showing all the talks online for free.”

For more details, visit the festival website.