Litquake Literary Festival 2017 Report

Litquake Literary Festival 2017 Report

FESTIVAL NUMBERS 14,300 attendees 850 authors featured 800 books given to schoolchildren 180 events, 76% free admission 160 venues throughout SF & Bay Area 102 separate events at closing night Lit Crawl 90 literary partners 45 sponsors Nine days and nights One Lit Crawl, the world s largest such event Poetry World Series, The Make-Out Room

FESTIVAL AT A GLANCE In 2017 the Litquake literary festival celebrated its 18 th year with an astonishing variety of readings, conversations, panel discussions, film screenings, storytelling, and lectures. The festival welcomed many literary luminaries such as Brit Bennett, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Barry Gifford, Chris Kraus, Marc Maron, Sonia Sanchez, Jane Smiley, Maggie Stiefvater, Amber Tamblyn, and Gene Luen Yang. Our most popular events were poetry at Grace Cathedral, a conversation with podcaster Marc Maron, a staged reading of Joan Didion s SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM, and an evening with Loudon Wainwright III. Exalted Prose, Grace Cathedral

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS Our Parsing the President event dissected the behavior of our Chief Executive, and featured Sen. Barbara Boxer, psychiatrist Dee Mosbacher, and NPR s Geoffrey Nunberg. We screened four films adapted from books, each followed by an author talk, and all were sold out. Author Waldo E. Martin discussed his Black Panther Party history BLACK AGAINST EMPIRE to a sold-out audience at American Bookbinders Museum. The new San Francisco queer publication FOGLIFTER JOURNAL launched its new issue to a capacity crowd at the S.F. AIDS Foundation s Strut building. Brazilian Literature in Translation, Swedish American Hall Our Words Around the World series hosted five nights of international events, including Brazilian literature, Irish poetry, and tributes to Gabriel García Marquez and Pablo Neruda. Authors Jaimal Yogis and Aaron James discussed the enlightenment of surfing at Mollusk Surf Shop, on Ocean Beach. Attendees at our Contemporary Jewish Museum event for Eddy Portnoy s BAD RABBI: STRANGE BUT TRUE STORIES FROM THE YIDDISH PRESS, were delighted to watch him sign each copy in Yiddish. 826 Valencia, Lit Crawl

AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS GENDER: 70% female 30% male AGE: 11% Under 20 20% 20-30 19% 30-40 15% 40-50 15% 50-60 20% Over 60 ETHNICITY: 69% Caucasian 13% Asian 7% Latina/Latino 5% African American 4% Mixed 2% Native American Donde Este Mi Gente?, Lit Crawl FIRST-TIME ATTENDEES TO LIT CRAWL: 47% LOCATION: 58% San Francisco 26% East Bay 8% Peninsula/South Bay 6% Outside Northern California 2% Marin/North Bay Lit By the Lake, Oakland Public Library

MARKETING & PROMOTION The 2017 festival s media outreach included print and digital advertising, radio promotions, email newsletters, collateral distribution, and social media. Highlights included: Inside front cover ad in S.F. Chronicle Sunday Pink Section (651,120 readership) Hundreds of posters, programs, and bookmarks distributed to Bay Area bookstores, libraries, and venues in advance of the festival Bartable partnership with newsletters, social media, and banner presence at Montgomery Bart station (46,239 exits/day) Sponsor / highlights slide show screened at all major venues Cross-promotion with dozens of partners, from bookstores to publishers, libraries, and arts organizations such as SFJAZZ and Amoeba Music Significant social media traffic increase from 9/16-10/16: 302,000 Facebook impressions, 124,000 Twitter impressions

FUN FACTS Over 1,000 children attended our four days of Kidquake programs and workshops Authors represented over 20 countries including Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Vietnam ALTA: JOURNAL OF ALTA CALIFORNIA launched its premiere issue with 3,000 copies distributed for free during the week Our festival poster was designed by Portland artist Gary Houston, aka Voodoo Catbox At the book release event for HARLEM OF THE WEST, nonagenarian jazz trumpeter Frank Fisher described his experience playing with Duke Ellington: nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs Kidquake Day 1, San Francisco Public Library

PRESS COVERAGE PRINT Diablo Magazine San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Examiner San Francisco Magazine San Jose Mercury News Time Out Where Magazine ONLINE 7x7 48 Hills Bay Area Reporter The Bold Italic Hoodline Johnny FunCheap KALW KQED Lit Hub San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco Magazine San Jose Mercury News SF Station Time Out Where Magazine BROADCAST KALX KQED KALW KCSM Litquake, the festival of all things literary, is back in San Francisco, Oakland, Napa, Berkeley, and Marin, with a huge menu of writers for every taste and age group. KQED In its 18th year, the event has come to embrace so much that is dear to the Bay Area: Writing, reading, history, art, drinking, politics, performance. Its scores and scores of events now cater to kids, teens, authors, literature fans, lovers of popular culture, and people who just like to be part of something big, fun and unpredictable. San Jose Mercury News 1 st Tuesday s Spoken Word, Lit Crawl

57 Post St., Suite 604 San Francisco, CA 94104 415-440-4177 litquake.org European Longform Fiction Swedish American Hall