Happy Friday bookish people! It’s a different kind of post today, I hope you’ll all enjoy my review of GollanczFest 2024.
On Friday 15th March my Mum and I travelled to London for this event, the train journey was an absolute nightmare but we eventually made it to our hotel. The great thing was that the hotel we were staying in was only a ten minute walk from the Leonardo Royal hotel that Gollanczfest was being held in.
I think the best thing for me to do here is to be completely honest, I paid for a VIP ticket to this event and I do think the description of the things we were meant to get was not at all like what we got. For example the VIP tickets gave you a goody bag worth £60, well there’s no way that goody bag was worth anywhere close to £60. There was a proof of un upcoming book, a pen, a pin badge, a schedule for the day, a piece of card to get authors signatures on and some bookmarks etc. It also said that we would get £40 to spend in the Gollancz shop and this was not true either – we got a ‘£40 off when you spend £80’ voucher. So, before I get into anything else about the day I will say I don’t think the VIP ticket was worth the price of it.
Okay, so moving on to the panels of the day, I went to three of the panels. I went to the Romantasy panel, ‘I would do anything for love but I won’t stay at an inn with two beds’ with Dhonielle Clayton, Lauren Dedroog, Sarah Hawley and Jennifer Delaney. Which was a very entertaining start to the day. Four very string women talking about the struggles they face working in the fantasy genre.
The second panel I went to was ‘we built this city on airtight magic systems’ with Joanne Harris, Garth Nix, Ben Aaronovitch and Oraine Johnson. This was my favourite panel of the day. I loved hearing these authors talk about how and where they can write and how the process goes from idea to novel.
The final panel event was the headliner event which was Victoria Aveyard, author of the Red Queen series and the Realm Breaker series. This was a nice gentle event to close the day with.
I didn’t go to any of the signings in between the panels because they got very busy and I struggle to manage crowds like that so I stayed away but because I had the VIP ticket I got to meet two authors of my choice at two separate times during the day. I met Garth Nix first, he was so lovely and he signed my copy of Newt’s Emerald. I got to spend 15 minutes with him and then take a polaroid with him which is now on my bookshelf. Then in the afternoon I got to meet and chat with Ben Aaronovitch for 15 minutes and I showed him my braille copy of Rivers of London which he got very excited about.
Throughout the day there were also interactive events like have a go at audiobook narration and panels about the blogging industry and getting a novel published. They also had a waterstones shop and a raffle and a few other games. Overall I feel the experience was a good one, although it was a long and tiring day.
Have you ever been to Gollanczfest? How did you find it?
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