Alderney Literary Festival cancelled

• Festival has run in the shoulder months since 2014.
• Organsier says it is not possible to get everyone needed to the island on time.
• 2027 event could also be off because of planned work to the Alderney runway.
• Plans to concentrate on single author talks instead.

Travel uncertainty and spiralling costs have been cited for the cancellation of this year’s Alderney Literary Festival.

For more than 10 years the festival has brought together leading historical authors and historians.

“This has been a difficult decision to make,” said Isabel Picornell, founder of the festival which has been running annually since 2014, with one exception in 2021 during the Covid lockdown.

“The problem is we have reached the stage where it is not possible to get the guest authors and professional support staff, as well as our regular festivalgoers with 80% coming from off-island, here on schedule.

“We have many world-renowned authors wanting to come to Alderney, along with regular visitors from overseas, including Guernsey and Jersey, so this news will disappoint a lot of people.”

Uncertainty around the Alderney runway rebuild means that the 2027 Festival could suffer the same fate.

Traditionally, the festival has been deliberately scheduled for the shoulder months to bring people to Alderney when there are fewer tourists.

However, flight frequency is reduced during those months.

The Literary Trust is hoping to organise more single-author events as an alternative, such as the visit of biographer Andrew Lownie who will be launching the updated edition of his biography of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, on May 30th.