Don't back failed Kidwelly e-book festival, council told
A KIDWELLY resident has called on the town council to disassociate itself from organisers of the UK's first e-book literary festival.
The council received a letter from Mark James, of Glanafon, requesting that it no longer backed the ventures of the Kidwell-e Festival's founder, Julian Ruck, in the wake of outspoken comments he made after the event flopped.
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Festival founder Julian Ruck
Mr Ruck, of New Street, publicly criticised the community, claiming the festival held at Ffos Las in July had received "zero" local support. He also declared Wales was "not investor-friendly", that the Welsh were "not very good at immediate adjustment" and that the event was "an effort to improve the literacy crisis in Wales".
Mr James wrote: "I respectfully suggest the council or councillors look carefully at any association they may have with these organisers, with comments such as these.
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"Will the council express an opinion as to disassociating itself with the organisers of this festival, particularly due to the criticisms levied against the community?"
He also urged the council to invite the organisers to change the festival's title as it "may become a blight upon the town's name", at a time when it needed to encourage more visitors and events.
It had been hoped thousands would attend the festival in July, but footfall fell dramatically short of expectations — attracting fewer than 100 visitors.
At the latest town council meeting, clerk Geraint Thomas said: "I can confirm that the council was not in support of the relocation of the event to Trimsaran and sent a letter to the organiser, Julian Ruck, stating this while asking for further information, but no reply arrived."
Councillor Ryan Thomas said: "This raises particular issues and it is quite right in saying that the council did not support it, but the festival did go ahead and went ahead with the Kidwelly name.
"It had no authority to be called Kidwell-e.
"Certain comments to the local paper from Mr Ruck were not favourable to the local community, and the council may want to disassociate themselves from these types of people. There does seem to be a lot of people popping up with limited groups."
Mr Ruck replied: "The Kidwelly Town Council has precisely no legal authority whatsoever to prevent me calling my company Kidwelly Festival Ltd, neither indeed does it have any legal authority to stop me using Kidwell-e as a brand name.
"Kidwelly Festival Ltd and brand name Kidwell-e stand. If the august and venerable Kidwelly Town Council doesn't like it, tough, I'll see them in court."
"If these malcontents enjoyed a trifle more foresight and also perhaps a disposition that allowed them to see beyond the two-mile limit of Kidwelly town, they would appreciate that the name Kidwelly will only ever be associated with being in the vanguard of the e-book revolution as being the first place in the UK to hold an e-book festival and also the first place in the world to offer a £10,000 e-book award."
Comments
by mrjames
Wednesday, October 03 2012, 2:00PM
“Interested to learn today that Julian in turning his back on Wales and leaving; heading back to England..........all I can say is Ruck Off then”
by mrjames
Tuesday, October 02 2012, 12:45PM
“Well said miketea1.... Ruck shouldn't take all the blame surely (just because his ego ran-off around the racecourse!) what about Ricks co-investor; the 49% shareholder who apparently took the festival from a non profit company (Kidwelly Festival Ltd) to the profit company Kidwell-e Festival Ltd. Mr Robin Cammish no less, the community champion of Kidwelly; always in the papers is Mr Cammish from Hampshire:- you don't need planning permission in the Gwendraeth Valley, you need Cammish permission! This time, he doesn't have much to say in the press in support of his business partner Ruck? (and his anti-welsh community rants). C'mon Mr. Cammish, step forwards and own-up, you're just as responsible for this disastrous event as Ruck.”
by miketea1
Monday, September 24 2012, 6:00PM
“The Kidwelly e-book festival was an unmitigated disaster and the only one to blame is Julian Ruck. I am glad the council has disassociated from this train crash of an event and only hope something can be done to wrest back the good name of this ancient borough before even more damage is done it in the name of this man's vanity.
I was there on the Saturday and can testify that reporting "less than a hundred visitors" is generous. At any one time there can't have been more than a couple of dozen visitors at an event advertised as attracting 20,000 to 30,000 visitors over the weekend.
The first talk on that day was already put back an hour in the vain hope some more would turn up. By the time it did go ahead there was an audience of four; three who had turned up fore the next speaker - and the next speaker. It was embarrassing.
By the afternoon not only was the audience missing but the speaker was absent too. Julian Ruck had lost an audience and an author in the same afternoon! How much worse could it possibly get?
Reliable sources report that by Sunday stall-holders who had been tempted to this event on false promises of substantial numbers of visitors were practically a lynch mob. I understand that a "tired and emotional" Mr Ruck handed out the £10,000 prize for the best e-book, making great play of the fact that it had come out of his own pocket, before closing the event early. This was one of the sorriest tales in recent Welsh literary history and all to serve the ends of a vanity-published, "legend-in-his-own-mind" Mr Julian Ruck.
He won't be the first to have more money than sense but shame on him for dragging others into his nightmare fantasy world and for dragging the good name of Kidwelly through his private mire.”