The Bath International Music Festival is to merge with the Bath Literature Festival into a single festival that will run for 10 days in May 2017 and 17 days in subsequent years, with a greater rôle for jazz.
This can be seen as a return to the more inclusive Festival that once used to exist. A few years ago it got rid of non-musical events, some of which (such as walks led by local historian Kirsten Elliott) were snapped up by the Literature Festival. Ever since then the programme of the Music Festival has looked a bit thin, and the branding of Bath as a ‘Festival City’ did not do it any favours. There is a danger of course that the music could become a sideshow to the literature events, which are much less expensive to put on.
Let’s measure this development against the open letter I wrote a few years ago, with suggestions about the festival. It certainly fulfils two of the headings Establish primacy and It’s not just music. I suspect a combined Festival might also be able to deal better with Street Publicity, Know your audience and some of the others, because the Literature Festival has always given the impression of being very well run and promoted. If there’s one single change I’d like to see to the musical side of the combined Festival, it would be the return of the Assembly Rooms as a venue.