This is a story of The Stay at Home Experiment (and friend) taking a trip out of the house to try something new.
Just this weekend, at the recommendation of my sister, I traveled to the National Book Festival.
What is the National Book Festival? A great gathering of dozens of authors from all different styles and genres, at which they speak and sign books, and libraries and other related institutions have booths and games and giveaways.
Here's the tale of my day at the National Book Festival.
My day started with traveling to the Festival. There were other people on the train who were certainly also going to the Festival, a few families with children of all ages, and most of them had their phones out and were scrolling through the schedules they had made on the festival's app. I did not think far enough ahead to discover that there was an app, so I had to rely on my sister.
Now you know about the app, so you can have that advantage when you go to this festival next year, or any other well organized book festival.
We arrived to find friendly volunteers directing us through a security line where there were friendly security people, directing us on to more friendly volunteers who handed us schedules and maps (a necessity. This place was huge). There were thousands of people in the building. According to the ever knowledgeable Wikipedia there were 200,000 people at the 2013 festival.
These thousands of people come to see and hear an impressive lineup of authors from all styles and genres. A delay of trains made us too late to hear Kate DiCamillo speak, but we were just on time to get in line to have her and an author my sister was interested in sign our books.
We headed downstairs to the massive ground floor room, perhaps the largest room I have ever been in taking up the entire basement level of what made 2 or 3 separate buildings above ground. There were 20 lanes where authors were scheduled to sign books throughout the day. There was even a makeshift bookstore set up in one section, and booths and stages where people were speaking.
My sister and I moved along the book signing lanes to find Sabaa Tahir and Kate DiCamillo. We had no idea what the lines would be like, and found Kate DiCamillo's line already spilling far beyond its lane. I thought I might not make it to the front of my line. My sister jumped in the neighboring line for Sabaa Tahir. We each had our own moments of realizing both that these authors are 1) Normal human beings and 2) still awesome. I'll leave it at that.
 |
After we successfully got the first round of books signed, we went in search of food. This is my only complaint. I ate a $12.00 mediocre hamburger and $5.00 mediocre fries. We expected that, though.
At this point, we went to checkout the booths. We did not end up getting to hear anyone speak, though we did cruise through the booths and get some free posters and stickers. We then got in our next book signing line, and finished our day successfully with four signed books. Guess what we're giving out for Christmas from now on!
 |
| Why yes, we did get a selfie with Jane Austen. |
My only change next year will be to try to plan around getting at least one talk in.
But how much does attending this event cost? you may ask. The answer? Nothing. It's free. You can make this your entertainment for the weekend and spend no money...unless you buy books or food. I bought food. I brought my own books.
So was this trip out worth it?
Absolutely. It was free, and a great experience. I'd do it again without question.
My tips:
Plan in advance. I'll do that next year. Get that fancy app that my sister had.
Be aware of how well known and popular your author is, and get in line early accordingly. My sister waited in one line that was only 10 minutes or so long. I got in Kate DiCamillo's line 15 minutes early and made the cutoff only by about 5 minutes. If I had showed up during her signing time rather than before, I would not have made it. Condoleeza Rice's line was hundreds of people long 30 minutes before she even started signing books.
Leave plenty of travel time in case of traffic or train issues, and so that you can figure out your way around the building.
Enjoy your own trip in the future!
Comments
Post a Comment