Harrogate Festivals on full speed ahead!

Harrogate Festivals on full speed ahead

It has been a busy few weeks at HIF Towers, we have launched the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival programme in London. A fantastic weekend is in place for the summer chaired by the award winning Ruth Ware who has recently announced that Keria Knightley is set to start in a new film adaptation of Ware’s 2016 thriller, The Woman in Cabin 10 for Netflix.

We were also honoured to be invited to the recent Garden Party at Buckingham Palace as part of a celebration of the creative industries in partnership with the DCMS. A special afternoon with our trustees and sponsors and a particularly lovely to be presented to the Queen, as well as enjoy some rather fabulous celeb spotting in the gardens!
In other royal news, HRH King Charles III also wrote to us to advise that after a review of his patronages that he will continue as Patron of our charity, which we are thrilled about. I think opening the official letter in front of the team was more nerve wracking than my GSCSE results.

We have also announced a new book published by Orion and with stories inspired by the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. Titled Murder in Harrogate it is a stunning new anthology edited by Vaseem Khan and with short stories from crime writing heavyweights including Ann Cleeves, Mark Billingham and Steve Cavanagh, you can pre-order yours at the Festival office now.

Moving on from sounding like a society diary, we were back down to earth with a bump as boxes upon boxes of print and books are now arriving at the office and have to be unloaded, repacked and distributed across the north. It’s fair to say that we don’t need a gym at this time of year as lug about kit, instruments, books and flags across town for marketing and events across the season. And the events are shaping up nicely for the summer.

We open with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the Royal Hall, the Spiegeltent beams into town with a range of old favourites and exciting new artists to discover, free pop up concerts at Lilypad, the Big Read offers free books as part of the north of England’s biggest book club and Theakston’s will be on tap throughout the crime festival at the Old Swan Hotel as thousands descent on Harrogate to get their fix of murder and mayhem.FIND OUT MORE & BOOK YOUR TICKETS