Being immersed in the world of books and writers feeds my soul. So I took the past week off work to attend the Sydney Writers' Festival. I had pre-purchased tickets to to attended a dozen sessions over the five days, but ended up seeing twice that many - buying rush tickets on the day and spending time at the excellent free sessions on offer at the curiosity stage.
While I shared my festival experiences on Twitter (@inaguddle), I will blog about them here as I have done in the past (for example - SWF2022, SWF2019, SWF2018, SWF2016, SWF2015). It will take me time to write these posts as I process my thoughts on all that I have learned.
Before I get into the individual sessions, I thought I would reflect on my overall experience of the festival, the program, venue and experience.
Program
SWF Artistic Director Ann Mossop curated an incredible program - blending international and local authors who spoke on contemporary themes and issues. It was great to have international authors back in person. Over the course of the festival I saw an incredible line up of authors including: Helen Garner, Richard Flanagan, Eleanor Catton, Colson Whitehead, Pip Williams, Geraldine Brooks, Niki Savva. Margaret Simons, Peter Frankopan, Richard Fidler, Bernardine Evaristo, Shehan Karunatilaka, Sophie Cunningham and more. The panel chairs and session hosts were universally excellent.
The Curiosity Stage was much better this year - with improvements to layout (allowing more people to comfortably sit), acoustics and content. These were the free public sessions and I tended to gravitate here whenever I had a gap between sessions. I particularly liked the 'Beginnings' options were a group of authors would give a five minute reading from their books. This meant that everyone could participate and see big names at the festival.
I also appreciated the efforts to include people from across the country via livestream from local libraries and halls. The session chairs did a great job of including these participants, taking questions from Bunbury, Gosford, Bathurst and many places near and far.
SWF always feels really accessible - getting up close and personal with authors you admire. I enjoyed getting to talk with writers at book signings or while passing them as they walked through the venue. I even got to chat with journalist Annabel Crabb in the queue at the bookstore about what she was buying.
Ticketing
I pre-purchased most of my tickets. One of the challenges is that the program comes out at night and then tickets are on sale the next day - giving limited time to plan sessions. It would be great if there were a week or even a weekend between program release and ticket sales. In previous years there were discounted rush tickets for last minute bookings, but this year rush seats were full price. I always thought the discounted on-the-day seats were a great option, especially for students or others who found full price prohibitive.
Venue
I spent most of my festival at Carriageworks in the festival precinct. It is super handy for me as it is close to home, but it is also a great space - offering open areas, plenty of seating, and options for food and drink. Given its central location and openness, it was also easy to meet up with people.
My only quibble is with the seating in Bay 17 where I spent most of my time. The raked seats are comfortable and well spaced, but the floor seats are not and some have limited views (with cameras obstructing and neck-craning angles). On Friday and across the weekend they added two extra rows of seats (AAA and BBB), presumably for overflow, but these rows narrowed access in and out of the session creating bottlenecks.
I also attended a session at Sydney Town Hall which is always a glorious venue.
Volunteers and Staff
SWF has the best volunteer crew. They were everywhere - directing people to their seats, coordinating book signing lines, handing out programs, placing microphones. They really contributed to the friendly and inviting nature of festival. Having worked with volunteers, I know how important they are to the success of an event, and the SWF volunteers were great.
The SWF staff and Carriageworks staff were also amazing - troubleshooting and attending to the needs of participants. I also appreciated Ann Mossop's visibility and accessibility throughout the event. When one author did not show up for book signings, Ann Mossop came down the long line of fans and personally relayed the message that the author would not be present. She didn't need to do that herself, but I thought it showed leadership and saved the volunteers having to break the news.
Overall
As a whole, I thought the 2023 Sydney Writers' Festival was excellent. While I loved seeing favourite authors, I really appreciate being introduced to new voices and discovering new ideas. I came away from the festival with a long list of books to explore (and a groaning credit card bill) with plenty of titles to keep me busy until next year's festival!
Stay tuned for more posts about the sessions I attended.
Read more about my SWF2023 here:
- SWF2023 - Overall impressions
- Day One - Bernardine Evaristo; Shehan Karunatilaka
- Day Two - Sophie Cunningham; Anne Casey-Hardy; Fiona Kelly McGregor; Brigitta Olubas; Robbie Arnott; George Monbiot; Sarah Holland-Batt; Jane Harper; Richard Fidler; Peter Frankopan
- Day Three - Geraldine Brooks; Sally Colin-James; Pip Williams; Eleanor Catton; Raina MacIntyre; Clementine Ford; Colson Whitehead
- Day Four - Jennifer Robinson; Hedley Thomas; Helen Garner; Sarah Krasnostein; Pip Williams; Richard Flanagan; Eleanor Catton; Colson Whitehead; Tracey Lien; Sam Neill; Bryan Brown
- Day Five - Barrie Cassidy; Laura Tingle; Niki Savva; Amy Remeikis; Margot Saville; Simon Holmes A Court; Helen Haines; Margaret Simons; Paddy Manning; Kerry O'Brien; Thomas Mayo