Lake District book festival forced to cancel over cost of living crisis: ‘Things won’t be better by spring’

Director said it had been an ‘incredibly difficult, heartbreaking decision’

Book festival Words by the Water has cast doubts on its future after announcing that it would not be going ahead in 2023 due to the cost of living crisis.

The next edition of the Lake District festival was due to take place in Keswick in March 2023.

However, on Friday (2 September), the 10-day festival announced that it had been cancelled for next year.

Speaking to BBC Radio Cumbria, director Leah Varnell said that it had been an “incredibly difficult, heartbreaking decision”.

She described a “pincer movement” affecting the festival with escalating costs and declining ticket sales.

While Words by the Water had returned post-pandemic in March 2022 with audience numbers “back where we hope them to be”, she said that ticket sales for their sister festival in Devon in July had “absolutely plummeted”.

“People are feeling it and are worried about it,” Varnell said. “The first things you jettison if you are worried about money are leisure activities or pleasurable things that you can do without when you need to be paying your gas bill.

“Costs have escalated and ticket sales have declined and that pincer movement isn’t something we can wear.”

While she said that the festival, which brings up to 13,000 people to Keswick every year, may have a “phoenix-like rise from the ashes” in the future, Varnell added that: “Things are not going to be better by spring.”