When PR consultant Iliana Taliotis asked if I’d join forces with her to handle the PR for the 2025 Charleston Festival, I had no hesitation in saying ‘yes’. Who wouldn’t want to work on one of UK’s most innovative festivals of arts and ideas – alongside a very good friend? With our combined expertise working across literature, culture, art and design we were well placed to promote the brilliantly curated programme that brought together some of the most exciting international writers, artists and thinkers working today, all in the former home of the renowned Bloomsbury Group.

Our brief was primarily to strengthen and consolidate Charleston Festival’s position as a serious player in the literary festival calendar and build the festival’s profile through national news reporting from the event itself, along with driving ticket sales. Despite impressive audience numbers and a high calibre of guest speakers and innovative talks, Charleston had – to date – struggled to generate news coverage from the festival events.

The 2025 programme exemplified what sets Charleston Festival apart from other literary and arts festivals: not only was the programming both compelling and original, but it also spoke to Charleston’s history of resistance and progressive thinking. It’s this spirit, combined with Charleston’s unique setting in the Sussex South Downs, that informed our PR strategy.

The resulting campaign saw a high level of quality press coverage secured. Highlights included an interview with Richard E Grant for Harper’s Bazaar’s ‘British Season’ feature; Edmund de Waal on BBC Radio 4 Front Row discussing Charleston in the context of the Dalloway Centenary; sector press including an interview with Head of Programme and Events Melissa Perkins in BookBrunch and an Op Ed piece on the future of festivals for Arts Professional; and previews in Country Life and The Week.

We then identified the most newsworthy events at the festival – notably with Yulia Navalnaya, Nick Clegg, Grayson Perry, Lady Hale and her daughter Julia Hoggett, and Maggi Hambling – and targeted specific news reporters on the national press to come to Charleston on those days. These invitations translated into substantial news coverage in The Times, Telegraph and The Guardian, highlighting current topics of conversation from the impact of AI on artists to the Supreme Court judgement on the definition of women. Many of these news stories were subsequently picked up in the following days by other publications, both nationally and internationally. Finally, Charleston was featured alongside Hay Festival in the Guardian’s weekly newsletter Bookmarks – a testament to its position as a serious player on the UK’s literary festival scene.

I’m delighted to have been appointed to work with Charleston Festival on the 2026 programme.

www.charleston.org.uk

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