Festival of Libraries 2025 Highlights
Manchester Libraries were delighted to host several events and exhibitions for Festival of Libraries in June 2025.
The festival was a great success, and you can see the events that took place in Manchester Libraries (including the Inspired By Libraries conversation between Guy Garvey and Shaun Keaveny, pictured above) here: https://manclibraries.blog/festival-of-libraries-june-2025/
And watch a video of some of the highlights here:
Named as the second Most Inclusive UK Literature Festival 2025 and winner of Best Event at the Manchester Culture Awards 2024, Festival of Libraries returned 4-8th June 2025 with a packed programme of fun across all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester.
With over 140 events over 5 days, the festival was full of impressive feats and notable moments. And this week, as part of Green Libraries Week, CILIP published some of the incredible statistics that reflect these highlights. These include:
- Average audience rating from events at Festival of Libraries 2025 was 9.2/10 and 96% of attendees enjoyed their events
- In total there were 22.5k attendees to festival events
- 82% of attendees felt the festival showed their library had ‘more to offer than they previously thought’
- 44% of audiences made or created something themselves during the festival
- 84% of attendees felt the festival ‘made them feel more connected to the local community’
- 65% of audiences felt they had learnt something new
Receiving rave reviews from attendees, one festival goer said: “It’s a tremendous festival and I was amazed at the number of events. I wish I’d had the time to attend more”, whilst another loved the interactive nature of the events on offer, enthusing: “A lot of the events are participatory, which feels different from other literary festivals.”
For those who would like to view the full impact highlights report (with thanks to independent evaluator Eric Hildrew for his work on it), they can download it here: https://www.manchestercityofliterature.com/app/uploads/2025/10/Festival-of-Libraries-2025-Impact-Highlights-FINAL.docx-1.pdf
The Festival of Libraries is funded by Arts Council England and this year was delivered at 64 participating venues by library and literature partners across Greater Manchester.
The dates for Festival of Libraries 2026 are provisionally 10-14th June, so get it in the calendar and subscribe to Manchester City of Literature for updates.
