Kenya-Born Storymoja Festival Opens Its New Life in Ghana

Last year's festival in Nairobi saw some 6,000 visitors, but young people and school children, who made up more than half of that number, had subsidized tickets. Mutu writes that "ticket sales cannot sustain an international-standard festival that includes costs for hosting invited guests and hiring a venue." Garland adds, "It would take corporate support, especially advertising, for us to attract at least 20,000 festival goers." And, while acknowledging that other book festivals draw huge crowds (250,000 at Hay, over a million at Jaipur, over two million at Edinburgh), he says, "These festivals have grown over many years of local support from their governments and corporate sectors."