Festival hub

Festival cultural partner

The Weston Library’s Blackwell Hall is to be turned into a festival hub for Oxford Literary Festival again this year and it will include a festival bookshop.

Blackwell's will be selling all the books for this year's festival, helping to turn the hub into the go-to place if you're coming to events.

You'll be able to find out what's going on, buy and read the books and relax and enjoy a coffee and a snack. You can also visit the free Bodleian exhibitions in the Weston Library.

Blackwell Hall, on Broad Street opposite the Sheldonian Theatre, is the main visitor hall of the Weston Library, part of Bodleian Libraries.

Oxford Literary Festival ticket holders can get 10% off in store at the Bodleian Libraries gift shops. Show your ticket to claim your discount. (Exclusions apply, not to be used in conjunction with any other offers. Ask in store for details.)

Blackwell Hall opening hours

These are the opening hours of the Benugo Café, festival hub and Bodleian exhibitions during the Oxford Literary Festival.

Saturday 21 March 9am-6pm

Sunday 22 March 9am-4pm

Monday 23 March to Saturday 5 April 9am-6pm

Sunday 29 March 9am-4pm

Festival information desk

The festival information desk will be situated opposite you as you enter Blackwell Hall. Note: there will be no box office in Blackwell Hall this year. Last-minute tickets can be bought at the door of events subject to availability. Card purchases only. Tickets can also be purchased online or by telephone on 0333 666 3366 right up until the last minute before an event.

Café and toilets

The Weston Library café serves a delicious selection of hot and cold drinks, freshly-made soups, salads, sandwiches, cakes and pastries. Toilets are situated next to the café.

Free talks

Details to come.

Festival information:

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

Festival media partner

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Wines of the Douro Valley

Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection

Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection

Oxford International Centre for Publishing

Accountants to the festival

Private bank - London

Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024

Partner of Oxford Literary Festival

New College founded 1379

Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314

Worcester College founded 1714

Lincoln College founded 1427

Trinity College founded 1555

Magdalen College founded 1458

Reuben College founded in 2019

Harris Manchester College founded 1893

Founded 1884

Festival digital strategy & web design

Olive oil from Sicily

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

Local radio partner