Tickets go on sale tomorrow!

Your chance to book tickets for our 2025 programme is almost here. Tickets go on sale at 10:00 (BST) on Saturday 21 June – that’s tomorrow!

To help you have as smooth a booking experience as possible, we’ve included some top tips (below) which should speed up getting hold of tickets for your favourite events.

To explore our 2025 programme of events, and to book tickets for in-person or online events when public booking opens, visit edbookfest.co.uk.

Explore our programme before tickets go on sale!

Photo of a queue waiting to get into an event at the Book Festival

Our top tips for ticket booking

1. Make sure to register for an account at edbookfest.co.uk in advance of our on sale day.

2. There will be a queuing system on the website on our opening day of sales (Saturday 21 June) – this is usually our busiest day for ticket orders. The queue will open at 10:00 (BST).

3. Log in to your account at edbookfest.co.uk before booking opens at 10:00.

4. Once you are logged in, the Join the Queue button will appear automatically when the countdown finishes at 10:00. Click the Join the Queue button to secure your place in the queue.

5. Once you have clicked the button to join the queue, you don’t need to keep your browser open – you will get an email notification when you have joined the front of the queue and are able to book tickets.

6. Watch our How to Book video on YouTube for full details.

Booking tickets on our website

Booking via our website is the quickest route to securing your tickets.

Use the search filters to explore the programme line-up on the events page. You can browse events by category, theme, author, or child’s age to hone in on what you’re looking for. Or you can enter any word(s) into the keyword search to find events that suit your interests. Our expanded Young Adults programme is ready to be discovered here, and our Children and Families programme can be explored here.

Once you’ve found an event (or hopefully events!) you’d like to attend, click into the event page and use the Buy tickets button to add tickets to your shopping basket.

Contacting our Box Office by phone

We have a friendly but small Box Office team dealing with phone bookings and enquiries, so please only use the phoneline if you cannot book on the website. This will help to reduce wait times for customers who cannot book in any other way or need assistance to book. We will do our best to deal with calls quickly, but please be aware that you may not get through immediately.

Our Box Office phoneline is 0345 373 5888.

Bookmarks

For the quickest and easiest booking experience on the day, why not explore the programme now and bookmark the events you’re interested in? Click the Bookmark button near the top right of the event listing to add it to your wishlist. To see your bookmarked events, log in to your account from any device and open the My Festival tab at the bottom right of every page. Once booking opens, you can use this to click through to each bookmarked event and book the appropriate number of tickets. Please note that bookmarked events are not automatically added to your basket.

Access bookers

If you need a support person or aide to attend events at the Book Festival, they are entitled to a free assistance ticket. Contact the Box Office by emailing boxoffice@edbookfest.co.uk as soon as possible after booking your ticket. Please do this even if you book an Access Concession ticket, as this does not automatically provide a free assistance ticket or specific seating. Free assistance tickets cannot currently be booked online. For popular events or on the first day of bookings, we recommend purchasing an extra ticket for your assistant, then contacting the Box Office for reimbursement.

Concession ticket prices

We believe everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy the wonders of storytelling, creativity, and inspiring conversation at the Book Festival. That’s why we offer reduced ticket prices for anyone over 60, students, those under 30, anyone on Income Support, and visitors with access needs (assistants go free – see above for details).

For full concession listings, please visit our website.

In-person and livestreamed events

Photo of audience at Book Festival event in McEwan Hall

Venue T, our largest capacity venue at Edinburgh Futures Institute, and McEwan Hall are set up to serve both in-person and online audiences, where we have permission from the event participants. The theatre will have a range of cameras to capture and broadcast live footage of the authors on stage and may also capture shots of the audiences watching or asking questions. If you would prefer to watch an event online where a livestream is offered, you can reserve your space now, with payment on a Pay What You Can basis.

On demand

Lots of our online events are available to watch on demand on the website’s video player pages immediately after the live broadcast. Please visit the individual event page to see how long a specific event may be available on demand as this can vary. Not all livestreamed events are available on demand. On demand events can be viewed on a Pay What You Can basis.

Our venues

The 2025 Book Festival will return to the Edinburgh Futures Institute on Lauriston Place. Most in-person events will happen here, with a small number of events taking place at the nearby McEwan Hall, Elliott’s Studio, National Library of Scotland, and Dynamic Earth. Some walking tours may depart from specific other locations. Please check your bookings carefully for which venue your booked events are happening in, or which meeting point your walking tour is departing from.

Issues with your basket?

Some website visitors who are using government, council/local authority, and NHS Wi-Fi networks have reported issues while booking tickets due to their local firewall settings. We strongly recommend using a mobile device that is not connected to these Wi-Fi networks if you are having difficulty.

We hope you find events that excite, intrigue and inspire you – and that we’ll see you in August!

Share this email with a friend 📨

Copyright © The Edinburgh International Book Festival Ltd 2024. The Edinburgh International Book Festival has its registered office at 121 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4YN and is a company limited by guarantee (no SC 79939) with charitable status (SC 010120). All rights reserved.