Know Your Enemy

"Festivals pay everyone else who’s professionally involved. They pay for the electricity they use, they pay rent for the lecture halls they hire, they pay the people who supply the marquees and the toilets, they pay the publicists and the professional administrators, they pay for the drinks receptions, they pay the people who cook and serve the ‘black tie dinners’, they pay the people who design and print the brochures and the programmes, they pay the people who do the cleaning. Only the authors are expected to work for nothing. Many of us have had enough of that."

Philip Pullman tells the Bookseller why he's resigned as a patron of the Oxford Literary Festival. He's got a point - especially given the cost of some OLF ticket prices.