Book festival to return after inaugural success

From left to right: Cathy Frost, Emma Lightfoot, Tony Felgate and Andrew March organised Ipswich's first ever book festival

A town's book festival will return after a successful inaugural weekend.

Ipswich Book Festival took place in the town from Friday to Sunday after four local business owners came up with the idea for the project.

More than 40 events took place across 14 venues and included big names such as Gavin & Stacey actor Larry Lamb, who is also an author.

One of the organisers, Cathy Frost, said they had sold 1,300 tickets.

Larry Lamb along with author Camilla Barnes delighted a crowd at The Hold on Friday night

"A few people said to us, 'It feels like you've done this before, like we've always had a festival here'," she said.

"That for me was really lovely, because it meant we did a good job."

The event was sponsored by 14 other local businesses.

Ms Frost said Lamb had been "brilliant" during his event and had taken the time to shake hands with many of the people there to see him.

The event also clashed on Sunday with the East Anglian derby when Ipswich Town took on Norwich City at home, but Ms Frost said it had actually helped introduce the event to more people.

Coralie Bickford-Smith, a Penguin clothbound classics designer, gave a talk

Organisers revealed they had been left, understandably, exhausted but pleased with the success.

"It all landed really well and we feel very encouraged that there is an appetite for it," Ms Frost continued.

"We're already thinking about next year.

"We hoped this would be an annual thing but we wanted to land this one to see if we could make it work and make it work financially.

"I think we have landed it and landed it financially, but we are going to need sponsorship going forward.

"I don't think we'd be allowed not to [do it] now."

Ms Frost said organisers would work to introduce new elements for next year's festival and there would also be smaller pop-up activities taking place across the year prior to the celebration of literature.