Festival box office opens in Blackwell’s bookshop

Tickets can now be purchased in person and by telephone

The festival box office opens in Blackwell’s bookshop today (January 19).

Festival-goers can buy tickets at the box office in the Norrington Room of the bookshop in Broad Street, Oxford, between 10am and 4.30pm Monday to Friday.

The telephone box office and inquiries line will also be open during the same hours on 0870 343 1001.

Events can also be booked online through this website.

Title partner

International radio partner

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

Worcester College: Festival college partner

Supporter of Italian programme

Supporters of the Irish programme

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Festival London hotel partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

The festival hotel

Festival green room sponsor

Sponsor of Gibraltar Lecture

Broadcast media partner

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Lincoln College

St Cross College

10th St Hilda's day at the festival

St John's College

The Queen's College

Exeter College

Keble College

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Wadham College

Festival information:

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.

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

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.

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.

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

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

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