Book Eight
The Power of Play
For 2024, we celebrated the human enjoyment of play and imagination with our theme “The Power of Play”. With four days of author talks, panel events, workshops, crafts, performances, music, poetry, and dance, our programme this year was one of the best yet! The Literature Village in the stunning Newark Market Place featured more than 130 stallholders selling all sorts of treasures, and everyone delighted in Newark Creates’ Book Benches and our mystery treasure hunt.
This year, we were pleased to welcome the wonderful Michael Rosen to a talk at the Palace Theatre, interviewed by Tim Rideout with BSL interpretation. Other famous faces you would have seen around the festival included Joseph Coelho MBE, Nikki Smedley and Helen Rutter. We were pleased to host several diverse and interesting voices this year, including a talk on Creativity in Autism by Olivia Macnab.
Our Young Ambassador programme continues to develop, with 42 young people aged between 7 and 21 joining us this year to celebrate literature, develop events, and earn their Arts Awards. Many of these young people had a blast volunteering at our events, taking tickets on the door and acting as roving microphones for audience questions.
Prior to our main festival, we organised several wonderful schools’ visits in the Newark and Sherwood area. Children and young people of all ages enjoyed a variety of author visits, creative sessions and workshops, and were able to craft objects for our yearly Family Day in the Castle Grounds. We were pleased to welcome several schools to our talk with Michael Rosen on Thursday 11 July, and to a session with Joseph Coelho on Friday 12.
Our family day this year, Play in the Castle, attracted more than 800 children and their families for crafts, storytelling, theatre and performance, and yoga. We had a lot of fun exploring and playing outdoors across the day.
More than 200 writers, artists and creatives were warmly welcomed to Newark throughout the festival and delivered a wonderful programme that made the event a fantastic success.
“The festival was incredible, as an ambassador/visitor the amount of work you put into it was worth it, and so evident in all aspects. I feel really honoured to have been a part of the festival, thank you for the opportunity.”
2024 Festival Funders
A huge thank you to all our festival audiences, staff, volunteers, sponsors, funders, Festival Friends, and partner venues. We hope you enjoyed the festival, and we look forward to your continued support for 2025!
Book Nine
Coming soon! The 2025 edition of Newark Book Festival where we are celebrating Creativity. Our programme launches in May 2025.
Get Involved
Discover all the ways you can get involved in Newark Book Festival. From volunteering to membership and sponsorship, or becoming a stallholder at our Literature Village.