We’ve all seen those super cool graphics that Spotify has been doing recently. You know, the ones where you get to make a fictional lineup of your biggest artists from 2022? Well, what if we could have something like that, but for books and their authors? We’d call it Bookstrfest!
Imagine this: it’s kind of like a convention, but not. You’re outdoors, you’re with your best friends, and your favorite author is on stage, giving a killer reading of the latest, exclusive chapter of their upcoming book! Can you picture it? It’s Coachella, but with books! Keep reading to find out the exciting aspects of Bookstrfest!
Audiobook Concerts
If the chapter snippets and exclusive interviews aren’t doing it for you, picture this instead. Rather than having crowds of people sweating together and pushed to near-suffocating capacities, we’ll all be seated in soft bean bag chairs on a lawn. Maybe we’ll have Chloe Gong on stage reading the first seven chapters of These Violent Delights. There won’t be any head-banging, but when it gets dark, we can still wave our lighters and phones in the air while we take in the amazing prose!
Yummy Bookish Food
It gets even better when you think about how wonderful festival food can be! Street tacos, corndogs, and ice cream are all music festival staples. You can still have all those things, but added with a delicious bookish twist! For example, we could have sparkling apple cider a la The Cruel Prince by Holly Black! Or, maybe warm heated soup that references Feyre and Rhys’ mating moment in A Court of Thorns and Roses! Hopefully, the markup wouldn’t be too insane, but hey, I’d pay an extra couple of dollars to know the pastries I’m eating are endorsed by Lila Reyes from A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow!
Super Cool Book Merch
As someone who actually hasn’t been to a music festival before (I simply would not survive), I’m not sure if merch is sold at them, but I have to imagine it is. So, how fabulous would it be to stop midway through a bookish festival and be able to buy all kinds of fandom merch? We could pick up t-shirts, stickers, water bottles, and more! Our bank accounts might take a brutal beating, but at least we’d leave the weekend with some epic loot!
It Wouldn’t Be Held in the Desert
The most awesome part of this fictional book festival though? The fact that we wouldn’t have to hold it in the desert! We wouldn’t all be sweating, tired, and suffering sunstroke! Instead, it could perhaps be held in a pretty glade somewhere, or an open-air amphitheater of sorts! We could all still wear flower crowns, glitter, and boho fashion–as it’s a tradition–but without being dehydrated and exhausted! It’s the best of both worlds.
Honestly, it’s a super bummer that this doesn’t exist as of right now! Sure, we do have bookish conventions, but it’s just not the same! If some rich publishing company or author wants to make this real, please do so. I can guarantee you’d at least have us here at Bookstr on board and ready to say, “We were here before it was popular!”
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