Bookings and
Reservations

See details included with each event

Tickets for most events can be booked in advance either online, by phone, or from the venue box office.

ONLINE TICKET SALES

For most events, you can book your tickets online by clicking the "Book this event online" link beside the event details. All bookable events can also be found in the May section at… swindontheatres.co.uk

BOOK BY PHONE

To book by phone, call the number beside the event.

ON THE DAY

Or, on the day, tickets, if still available, can be bought on the door at each venue.

But please, with popular events, please check first for availability!

The ticket price in brackets applies to people entitled to concessions.

DOUBLE TICKETS

Most evening events scheduled at Swindon Arts Centre are available to buy as a double ticket at a reduced price. But these discounted tickets cannot be bought online. Should you wish to purchase double tickets, please call the box office on 01793 524481.

If you have any queries about booking or the Festival in general, please email us or ring 01793 771080.

Benedict Allen
Tue May 2

Clover Stroud
Wed May 10

Mark Lawson
Wed May 3

Francesca Martinez
Mon May 8

David Owen
Fri May 5

Catherine Mayer
Wed May 10

Xiaolu Guo
Thu May 11

Oliver James
Wed May 3

Vanessa Kisuule
Sat May 13

Marcus du Sautoy
Thu May 4

Lionel Shriver
Mon May 8

Terry Waite
Mon May 8

Welcome to the twenty-fourth
Swindon Festival of Literature!

The Festival begins with May Day frolics, words, music, and movement, outdoors, at dawn, with the rising sun, on that high ridge in Lawn Woods, overlooking Swindon.

Our Festival’s founding spirit is rooted in love of the word, good reading, exploratory talk, finding out about things, making connections, and the notion that life is for learning, and pleasure too.

To this end, for two weeks in Swindon, we have brought together novelists, poets, scientists, philosophers, politicians, historians, artists, storytellers, singers, adventurers, good writers, and plain speakers.

We like to share new ideas, hear old stories, listen to good readings, have dangerous discussions, discover new writing, flutter certain dovecotes, pursue a little pleasure, meet new faces, and see familiar ones too.

This is a festival that brings people together, in Swindon, to enjoy things well-thought, well-written, and well-said. Writers meet readers and readers meet writers. We talk, we listen, we think, we drink, and also like to laugh. As a result, enjoyable, interesting, challenging, unpredictable, funny, and even memorable things happen.

For a fortnight, in Swindon, there will be events daily, at midday, teatime, and in the evening, carefully spaced and placed to enable you to attend as many as your own timetable and stamina allow.

For the full at-a-glance Festival diary, see the List of Events page.

And then, mark your own diary, so that from 1st to 13th May you know where to be.

Please read on, come along, and switch on to Swindon!

Matt Holland

Festival Director

Only connect: Art and Literature!

From Between the Leaves
by Sarah Church

Imagination
by Lorenz Freiberg

Reader 3
by Tim Carroll

Building on the Festival’s friendly and fruitful collaboration with Swindon Open Studios last year, we are again staging an Original Artwork Lottery on the landing at the Arts Centre.

Very exciting!

This year, Swindon Open Studios have chosen the charity Twigs as beneficiary of their fundraising. Twigs brings the therapeutic benefits of working with nature to people recovering from mental health problems.

See twigscommunitygardens.org.uk

Bookings and Reservations