Holmfirth Children's Book Festival 2026

Aim

We're asking for your support to help us run our new Children's Book Festival for Holmfirth.

A bit about us

There are five of us who make up Holmfirth Book Festival Community Interest Company (CIC); Alex, Dan, James, Louise and Penny. We all live in Holmfirth and we all love books.

We are a not-for-profit organisation committed to promoting reading and books. Two of the five members of the CIC also run Read. Bookshop in Holmfirth and have lots of experience running in-person and virtual author events with schools.

Why we are raising money

There is something special about children being able to meet their favourite authors and so we ran our first ever festival in 2025 with a weekend packed full of live in-person events at The Civic. For 2026 we want to make the festival even bigger and better. This year, the festival will be held on 26/27th September 2026.

What we are looking to raise

We have been awarded a grant from Longley Farm Fund through One Community and we have been awarded a grant from the Holme Valley Parish Council. These will go towards paying for some of the author, illustrator, design and venue costs. 

Overall, we expect the festival to cost just under £9000. We are crowdfunding for £1500 of the total to help pay for advertising and marketing the events. This will help us to spread the word so that we can make it a sustainable and successful annual event. Every penny help will help inspire children to read.

Why support us?

We already work regularly with schools in the local community to promote a love of reading and improve access to books. We are experienced at hosting events and leading large scale projects, in fact Louise and her spreadsheets and trusty clipboard are well known! Our authors, and our venues are already booked. We are ready to go but just need a little help with the next stages of planning and publicising the festival.

What else you might want to know

We will be working with schools and libraries to ensure that children who may not normally be able to afford to access author events have the opportunity to do so. We are also committed to making as much of the festival as accessible as possible.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 19th June 2026 at 11:14am