Down the rabbithole

So it’s opening day tomorrow - and once again I feel that marvellous annual sense of anticipation, and pride, that has been building for the last few weeks, reaching a crescendo. As a board member I’m several stages removed from the nitty gritty of hard hats and tent poles, sound checks and sandwiches, but the email traffic hots up, there are more phone calls and the excitement seems to leak out of the gardens till the air is thrumming between Charlotte Square and Dunkeld, where I live. I know the tented village is ready – a literary souk, bristling with pleasures, treasures and surprises – and I can’t wait to disappear into it, like Alice down her rabbithole, a parallel universe of the utmost benignity. It’s the highlight of my year, and every summer I look forward to plugging myself into this huge, extraordinary generator that charges my batteries and nourishes me for the year ahead. Roll on Saturday!

Site build well underway

It's so nearly festival time - not long to go now for the Book Festival starts on the 15th. The city is gearing up too, just holding its breath for the first of the many festival shows to start - any minute now for the Fringe. Our site build in Charlotte Square Gardens is already well underway and the sun is still shining on us. The crew are very happy about that as you can imagine! And here they are laying out the floor of the RBS Main Theatre.


Not wanting to be sitting in the office in such good weather and rather jealous of those on site (although not so envious of all that heavy lifting), we at Book Festival HQ dropped in to take a few pics.


Trucks, poles, panels, rope, fenceposts, grass and even some tents. It's amazing to think that in just a week or so there will be 8 fully equipped venues up and running, a press pod, an authors' yurt, 2 bookshops, a signing tent, cafes, bars, a Spiegeltent, walkways and awnings.