Praise for literature festival success

A report on the fifth Morley Literature Festival has provided recommendations for future events.

It says the quality of the programme was particularly high, attracting big name authors Will Self, Barbara Taylor Bradford and Iain Banks who "gave the festival a very creditable status within the Press and on the wider festival/arts circuit."

The events exceeded audience targets in most cases, people travelling from Wakefield, Ossett and parts of Leeds to attend.

Only the Barbara Taylor Bradford event "significantly underperformed", selling 114 tickets, compared with 315 for Will Self, the best attended event.

The fact that the biggest attended event took place on a Tuesday suggested that the festival should worry less about days of the week in future, the report said.

"While the festival successfully produced an outstanding quality programme this year, it should look to develop its own projects in future years as well as bringing in authors on tour.

"This will give the festival a real depth and root it in its location in Morley," the Leeds Council report concludes.

Future funding for the event will be a bigger challenge because of wider cuts in the arts world.

The Find Your Talent programme, which gave 5,000 to the festival for schools events, has been cancelled by the coalition government.

A rethink will also be needed on working with youth groups after a disappointing session with Drighlington Youth Group and a graphic artist.

There were "behavioural problems" at the event, with too many children attending and youth workers struggling to maintain control.

"Additionally the artist did not have the right kind of skills for working with this kind of group," the report added.