York Literature Festival director MILES SALTER reflects on what has been a brilliant seventh festival

I FELT emotional on Monday evening, as I walked away from the final event of this year’s York Literature Festival.

I felt a mixture of feelings – pride at what the festival team (still a voluntary group) have achieved, and elation at the fantastic events that have taken place in York since March 20th, when this year’s festival started.

In total, more 4,500 people have been to theatre performances, workshops and author events this year. With 12 sold-out events and our highest ticket sales ever, it has been our best year.

The highlights? Seeing York’s secondary school children perform poetry that they had written, aided by poet and performer Kate Fox, at Tempest Anderson Hall on March 30th. The sincerity, humour and commitment of their performances was fantastic.

Germaine Greer joked about her age at the opening event, which was brilliantly supported by our sponsors York St John University, where Dean of the Faculty of Arts Dr Fiona Thompson has recognised the festival’s potential in recent years.

Roger McGough held a sold-out audience at Joseph Rowntree Theatre in the palm of his hand as he performed many hilarious poems from his six decades as a writer and performer.

John Humphrys talking about his unfulfilled ambition – to interview Her Majesty the Queen – at St Peter’s School, which also played host to fantastic events featuring Andrew Motion, Alan Johnson MP and Professor Robert Winston.

Winston spoke movingly about persuading women who can’t have children that ‘there is a life out there’, and was a terrifically thoughtful and quietly charismatic speaker.

Elsewhere, local groups performed their work in several locations including City Screen Basement Bar and Friargate Theatre. Hundreds went to see Birdsong, Austen’s Women and The Iliad, all at York Theatre Royal. Unusually for a literature festival, William Fotheringham, The Guardian’s Ccycling correspondent, spoke to a room full of men.

There were some great comments. ‘BBC Radio York is proud to be associated with such a prestigious event,’ said journalist Julia Booth before introducing a debate on erotic bestseller 50 Shades of Gray.

"The festival has a great future," said Visit York’s Chairman, Jane Gibson, at the opening night. "I’ve waited twenty years to hear Germaine Greer," wrote a punter on an evaluation sheet.

Writer Lucinda Hawksley was thrilled that the festival team had looked after her and paid her properly and sent out an enthusiastic tweet: ‘Thank you York Lit Fest for having such great staff and volunteers. Calling all authors – this is a lit fest to recommend.’

Audience members came from Bingley, Bolton, Morpeth and Durham. People in Brazil, Nigeria and Australia looked at our website, and two people even travelled from Denmark to attend several events.

This thing has legs. If York’s many and varied venues can be programmed together with a mixture of literature, theatre, comedy and music over a fortnight each spring, we’d have, without question, one of the best arts festivals in the UK. But there’s a lot of work to do.

Somehow, we have to transform a voluntary organisation into a more professional body. This will take a lot of time and effort, but it’s not impossible.

The bodies that have actively engaged with the festival this year - York St John University, York Theatre Royal, Visit York, St Peter’s School, the Arts Council, York Museums Trust, Your Consortium – could work together and co-ordinate an effort to help develop the event over the next few years.

Cheltenham Literature Festival, which can regularly pull audiences of 1,000 people, is fully supported by the local council, and helps feed the local economy and bring visitors to the town. We could do that in York. It just needs a bit of imagination and willpower.

I’m cautiously optimistic. Here’s to future days.