The Battle of Hay-on-Wye
Is the festival ruining Britain's premier town for secondhand books? Andrew Johnson reports
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An uncivil war has broken out in the small but internationally renowned book town of Hay-on-Wye on the Powys-Herefordshire border.
The booksellers who put the town on the map 30 years ago are angry and fearful at collapsing sales, and are pinning the blame on the festival, which began 25 years ago, on the internet, and now on each other.
The chief culprit, to their minds, is the self-styled King of Hay, Richard Booth, who is credited with starting the whole Hay phenomenon and who used to run one of the town's biggest book dealerships.
Mr Booth, they say, is no longer capable of attracting the publicity the town needs, nor of challenging the festival which, they argue, has become a corporate monster with sponsorship by Sky and The Guardian. They argue it sucks up the thousands of tourists who used to browse in the town's second- hand book emporia but now no longer visit except to park their cars.
In response, the rebels have been condemned as "parasites feeding on [Booth's] success" by his loyal bookkeeper Eve Redway.
The dealers are, however, facing real concerns. Paul Harris, who runs the antiquarian shop Oxford House Books, said some have seen their trade fall by 50 per cent over recent years.
"You can fill a town with books, but that won't bring people to the town," he said. "You need publicity and promotion, which is now all sucked up by the festival. Richard used to be great at drumming up publicity and denouncing the festival. He's not able to do that any more, so we need to set up a council to replace him."
Mr Booth, who has been unwell for some years, said yesterday: "We were founded as a town attraction, not as a bookselling attraction," he said. "Now, the town isn't promoted at all: it's the festival." The two sides are set for a showdown meeting next week, with Mr Booth's "abdication" on the agenda.
Peter Florence, who founded the Hay festival, argued last night that if the booksellers can't make money from its 65,000 visitors, they "need to rethink their strategy".
Authors speak out: Has Hay really lost its way?
'The problem is a combination of the recession and the internet. I sympathise with the booksellers'
Robert Harris
'There are two different types of bookseller... I'm quite sure that in the summer, they all do well'
Margaret Drabble
'I call the festival Waterstones-on-Wye. It's almost lost touch with intellectual value'
Duncan Fallowell
'Many festival goers don't go into the town, but the idea that the festival detracts from Hay is clearly preposterous'
Matthew Engel
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Comments
It seems odd for the booksellers of Hay to complain that the 'publicity and promotion' they deem necessary to sell books is now 'all sucked up by the festival' when the festival itself is the best publicity the town has, its very name appearing in the festival's title and on all the promotional material the festival produces.
A frequent visitor to the town both during the festival and at other times of year, I have witnessed huge numbers of Hay Festival attendees make the 10 minute walk or 3 minute drive by car or shuttle bus into town to frequent the excellent pubs and restaurants or to browse the wonderful shops - both bookshops and others.
I find it hard to believe that such a huge influx of bibliophiles over an eleven day period do not have a beneficial effect on sales at even the least user-friendly bookshop. Claims that tourists no longer visit except to park their cars are in my experience utterly incorrect.
Could 'tall poppy syndrome' be at work here I wonder?
Yours,
Paul Blezard
Without Richard Booth, the King of Hay, there would BE no books, no booksellers and, ergo, no festival for them to whinge about. In the town itself certain parties have been calling for our King to be beheaded. This is preposterous. In view of this, I speak for the large group of loyal citizens of King Richard who have banded together to form a Royalist Uprising. Because surprise is the best form of attack, the names of those involved in the Royalist Uprising must necessarily be withheld at this point.
Those guilty of treasonable offences must know that the battle will be as long and bloody as necessary until they are banished from our happy Kingdom and sent to lick their wounds in the communist environs of the South Wales environs or similar.
Hay gained fame through the founding of the Town of Books and King Richard's independence movement. Sadly due to Richard's failing health, changes in bookselling and the economic climate , professional booksellers are suffering locally and nationally.
The purpose of the Commonwealth is to try and reinvigorate the Town. The reliance of bookshops, even in Hay, on the internet robs the town of its distinctness and whatever side of the argument one comes from, businesses in the area be they bookshops, cafes, giftshops etc rely on the reputation of Hay as a booktown. If all booksellers decamp to the internet the whole point of a booktown goes with them, and Hay is no longer a distinct destination. Who wants to visit a booktown with no bookshops
The Commonwealth is a method of continuing the impetus of Hay as an independent state and reasserting itself as the Town of secondhand books. If locals believe that Hay can survive as a tourist destination with no books, or just one ten day festival then they've lost the plot.
Forward the commonwealth -off with the King's head
Witchfinder General to the Commonwealth
Anything which brings large numbers of people to Wigtown or Hay can only be good for the economies of both towns. It is then up to the businesses in the towns to make the most of a golden opportunity. If, like Mr Tutt, they chose not to do that, they have no right to blame the festival for letting them down - quite the reverse, they are letting the town down.
It now seems that booksellers and the literary festival people are falling out over why sales are falling. The festival, which has now become more of a celebrity bash than a literary event, may have something to do with it but, surely, the advent of internet bookselling is the main culprit. Whereas in days of yore if one wanted a particular book, one had to trawl the bookshops to find it (or advertise in that esteemed journal Bookdealer) and that was the fun of the chase. Going to Hay multiplied that fund many fold. That has now all gone for, with the click of a button, one can find as many as thousands of copies (vide Ivanhoe for instance - but who would be looking for that???) of the book that one is chasing without stepping foot in any shop. A great pity.
As for Richard Booth taking some of the blame, surely he should be lauded for it was he, and he alone, that started the Hay phenomenon. He did generate plenty of publicity at the time but he was a much younger man then. He is now older and probably does not have the energy that he once had to devote to such activity. It is time for someone else from Hay to take over and surely, it is a time for booksellers of Hay to unite not to fall out between themselves. To many of us Hay is still the book capital of the world and it can rise again if everyone pulls together; admittedly sales may never reach the heights of the 1970s and 1980s but a respectable level could well be reached and perhaps it is time to ditch the Literary Festival!
Gerry Wolstenholme
Marc and Jill Ramsey
Richmond, Virginia