Terms and Conditions

General Terms and Conditions

The owner of this website is: Wells Festival of Literature Limited, a registered charity (number 1045654) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (number 02827744) (“WFL”).
WFL has taken every care in the preparation of the content of this website. However, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, WFL does not represent or warrant the accuracy or reliability of any of the information or content about any goods or services, software or advertisements contained on, distributed through, or linked, downloaded or accessed from this website.
Tickets will be generally available from the date published on this website, although WFL reserves the right to make them available to selected individuals or groups of individuals before this date. There are three ways to book tickets to events during the annual Literature Festival held in October. Unless notified at the time of booking, there is no limit on the number of tickets you may buy.
1. Online at this website using the online box office facility. Note that the box office is provided by a third-party to whose website you will be linked and whose terms and conditions will apply alongside these terms and conditions.
2. By telephoning the box office 01749 834483, which is also provided by a third-party. Opening hours will be Monday to Friday, 9.30am -12.30pm. Payment is by debit or credit card.
3. In person from the Cedars Hall booking office at Cedars House, Wells Cathedral School, The Liberty, Wells BA5 2ST (adjacent to Cedars Hall). You may use debit or credit card, cheque, or cash.
4. You should check your ticket at the time of purchase and contact us the box office immediately if there is a mistake.
5. WFL will not be responsible for any tickets that are lost, stolen or destroyed.
6. The price of the ticket includes any applicable taxes and booking or collection fees; there is a small postage charge if you choose this option.
7. At the time of booking, you will have the choice to receive your tickets by email, to have them posted (for a small fee) or to collect them from the box office.
For events that sell out, a reserve list is maintained by the Cedars Hall booking office until 12.30pm the day before an event, when the Cedars Hall booking office will stop selling tickets for the following day’s events. Tickets will be available.
Refunds: subject to clauses 7 and 8 below, once an order is placed for a ticket online or by telephone, or once a ticket has been purchased in person, no amendment, return or refund of the price of a ticket is permitted, although any ticket is transferable to another individual. Please see the terms and conditions at the time of purchase.
Cancelled events: if the speaker has cancelled the engagement or arrives too late to give the talk at the scheduled time, we shall refund the price of the ticket or offer a ticket of equivalent price to another event.
WFL and our third-party box office will do our best to correct errors and omissions as quickly as practicable after being notified of them. In the unlikely event that you receive different tickets from those you ordered, please contact the box office as soon as possible. Nothing in these terms and conditions affects your statutory rights.
Conditions of admission
1. WFL reserves the right to refuse admission.
2. WFL reserves the right to request any person to leave the premises.
3. You should retain your ticket as it may be required for re-admission.
4. You must comply with safety announcements and instructions given by the stewards.
5. Animals are not permitted within the venue, with the exception of assistance dogs.
The information contained within this website is correct at time of being published. We reserve the right to make alterations where necessary and are not liable for any subsequent omissions.
You undertake that any and all tickets ordered by you are for your own private and domestic use only.
You agree that email can be used as means of communication.
Every transaction shall be deemed performed in the UK. UK law shall govern every aspect of contractual agreement concerning purchases made from this website.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable laws, WFL hereby excludes liability for any claims, losses, demands, or damages of any kind whatsoever with respect to the website, any tickets supplied and any events attended including, without limitation, direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential losses, or damages, whether arising from loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of data, loss of use or otherwise and whether or not the possibility of such loss has been notified to WFL. The foregoing will apply whether such claims, loss or damages arise in tort, contract, negligence, under statute or otherwise. WFL does not exclude or limit any liability for (a) personal injury (including sickness and death) where such injury results from WFL’s negligence or wilful default, or that of WFL’s employees, agents or subcontractors or (b) fraudulent misrepresentation. All persons attending events must comply with all instructions given at those events.
WFL may amend these terms and conditions from time to time, and place the new version on the website. When WFL do so, WFL will mention the fact on the home page. All purchases from the date that the amended terms are placed on our website onwards will be governed by those new terms.
These General Terms and Conditions supersede any and all other conditions, understandings, commitments, agreements or representations (except fraudulent misrepresentations) relating to your purchase of tickets.
Payment for and entry into any competitions run by WFL will be subject to the Terms and Conditions and Rules of those competitions, as well as to these terms and conditions. Please see the separate Competitions Terms and Conditions and Rules.
Membership of the WFL Friends scheme is subject to the Friends Membership Terms and Conditions.
WFL may from time to time sell or issue vouchers (“Vouchers”) which can be redeemed against ticket purchases. Vouchers will be subject to any additional terms and conditions stated at the time of purchase or issue.
If any of these terms are held to be invalid or unenforceable, those terms will be struck out and the other terms remain.
WFL will not be responsible for the content or availability of any third-party websites to which a user may be linked, or to which a user may link, from this website.
Use of this website, purchase and use of Vouchers and Friends Membership, and entry into the Competitions is subject to the WFL Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy
Please email us at admin@wellsfestivalofliterature.org.uk with any questions about the Festival and we will try and reply as soon as possible. Any questions relating to tickets should be addressed to the Cedars Hall box office whose contact details are: Please feel free to contact our Box Office on 01749 834483, boxoffice@wells.cathedral.school
These terms and conditions are subject to the laws and exclusive jurisdiction of the United Kingdom

2025 Friends Membership Terms and Conditions

1. The benefits of the Friends of Wells Festival of Literature 2025 can only be used by the named person or, in the case of joint membership, persons and relate to the 2024 Festival only. Membership runs from 5 November 2024 to 4 November 2025.
2. Friends of Wells Festival of Literature 2025 membership is non-refundable.
3. Membership of the Friends of Wells Festival of Literature 2025 entitles the holder/s to the benefits of the scheme for the 2025 Festival only.
4. Priority Booking privileges are restricted to a maximum of 2 tickets per event for single membership, 4 tickets per event for joint membership.
5. All information provided to us as part of your application for and membership of the Friends of Wells Festival of Literature 2025 will be held by us in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1988 and will not be passed on to a third party.
6. Wells Festival of Literature reserves the right to reject an application for Friends of Wells Festival of Literature 2025 membership or to terminate a Friends of Wells Festival of Literature membership at any time due to reason of misconduct or unacceptable behaviour by a Friend. In the event that Wells Festival of Literature terminates a Friends of Wells Festival of Literature membership in accordance with this clause, no refund will be given to that member for the cost of their membership OR for any remaining period of their membership.
7. All tickets purchased using Priority Booking are subject to our Ticketing Policy.

2024 Competitions Terms and Conditions

Terms and Conditions applicable to all Competitions (Open Poetry, A Book for Children, Short Story and the Young Poets Competition)

Entry into any Competition is subject to these Competition Terms and Conditions and to the extent not inconsistent, to the General Terms and Conditions.
The Competitions are open for entries from [00:00:00] 1 April 2024 until [23:59:59] 30 June 2024 BST.
Entrants outside the United Kingdom must enter online. Entries must be in English.
Each of the four Competitions has separate rules (Rules) stipulated which apply to that Competition.
All entries must be the exclusive and original work of the entrant. Entrants to the Young Poets Competition must be aged 16 to 22 inclusive, at the closing submission date on 30 June 2024. Entrants to all other competitions who are under the age of 16 at the closing submission date on 30 June 2024 must have permission from their parent or guardian, to whom any prize will be paid on the Entrant’s behalf.
Entrants to the Young Poets Competition may submit one entry. Entrants to the Open Poetry, A Book for Children and Short Story may enter as many times as they wish. Each entry requires a separate fee, stipulated in the Rules for each Competition.
At the time of entry, the work submitted must not have been entered into any other Competition and must not have been published in any format or location. All Competition entrants agree that once a work has been entered in any one of the Competitions, it must not subsequently be entered into any other competition or published until either (a) it has been determined that it has not won a prize or (b) after the prize winners have been revealed.
Entries which exceed the stated length will be disqualified.
Please save your work simply as its Title, as a PDF. Any deviations from this format will be disqualified
The entries for each competition will be shortlisted by our experienced shortlisting panels. The lists will then be sent to the advertised judges. In case of necessity, the Wells Festival of Literature reserves the right to change a judge or judges without notice.
ONLY shortlisted entries will be notified, and their names may be published by WFL in any format and in any medium. The list will be posted on the WFL website no later than 30 September 2024.
By entering a competition, all entrants grant permission and appropriate rights to WFL to publish their entries for any purpose of the Competition, including on the WFL website, and in any booklet published by WFL.
The judges’ decisions are final. No correspondence will be entered into.

Open Poetry Rules

You have read, understood and agreed to the WFL Competition Terms and Conditions.
The fee for each separate entry is £6. Competitors may submit any number of entries.
All entries must be anonymous. Do not include your name or contact details in the file title. Your name and contact details are recorded via a form.
Type your entry 1.5 or double-spaced text.
Put the title and page number on each page of each entry.
Poems may be on any subject.
Poems must not exceed 35 lines of text in length.
Add the line count to the top right of the first page.
Save the file as a PDF.
The file name should be the title of the poem only, typed exactly the same as the document, for example: I wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Do not put Wells Entry, my Poetry entry etc in the file title.
For untitled pieces, save the document with the first line of the poem.

Short Story Rules

You have read, understood and agreed to the WFL Competition Terms and Conditions.
The fee for each separate entry is £6. Competitors may submit any number of entries.
All entries must be anonymous. Do not put your name or contact details in the file title. Your name and contact details are recorded via a form.
Type your entry 1.5 or double-spaced text.
Put the title and page number on each page of each entry.
Stories may be on any subject.
Stories should be between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length.
Record the word count on the first page.
Save the file as a PDF.
The file name should be the title of your story, typed exactly the same as for the document.
Do not put Wells Entry, my Short Story entry etc in the file title.

Book for Children Rules

You have read, understood and agreed to the WFL Competition Terms and Conditions.
The fee for each separate entry is £6. Competitors may submit any number of entries.
All entries must be anonymous. Do not put your name or contact details in the file title. Your name and contact details are recorded via a form.
Type your entry 1.5 or double-spaced text.
Put the title and page number on each page of each entry.
The competition will judge writing for children, age 7 and up. This includes writing for young adults
Entrants must stipulate the age range of their book.
We require either the first two chapters or first twenty pages, whichever is the shortest, together with the synopsis of up to two pages.
Both the synopsis and the story should be saved in the same document for online entries.
Save the file as a PDF.
NB: Shortlisted authors may be asked to send in their complete manuscript.

Young Poets Rules

You have read, understood and agreed to the WFL Competition Terms and Conditions.
The fee for each separate entry is £3. Competitors may submit only one entry and must be aged 16 to 22 inclusive, at the closing submission date on 30 June 2024.
All entries must be anonymous. Do not put your name or contact details in the file title. Your name and contact details are recorded via a form.
Unless specific to the layout, please submit poems with single line spacing.
Put the title and page number on each page of your entry.
Poems may be on any subject.
Poems must not exceed 35 lines of text in length.
Add the line count to the top right of the first page
Save the file as a PDF.
The file name should be the title of the poem only, typed exactly the same as the document, for example: I wandered Lonely as a Cloud
Do not put Wells Entry, my Poetry entry etc in the file title
For untitled pieces, save the document with the first line of the poem

Privacy Policy

WFL complies fully with the Data Protection Act 1998 and any successor legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation.

Payment details:
Payment is handled separately, and securely, through our box office partners for Festival Tickets and Friends Membership and through Braintree/Paypal for competition entries, so those details are never gathered by us and we never have access to them. Our payment processors use their own security measures to keep your personal banking details safe, including safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption. Please see their privacy policy for more information.
What information do we gather?
As a visitor to this site you may be asked to provide us with personal information such as your name, address, telephone number and email address when you complete a form. If you allow us to do so, this information is collected for internal administrative purposes only and will not be passed to any other organisations.
How do we process this information, and for what purpose?
At present, we require these personal details for a number of reasons. We need your full name and email address so we may be able to send you tickets electronically, so we can re-issue you tickets and possibly offer refunds if necessary.
Who will we share this information with?
We do not share the information we collect with any third party apart, save as noted above.
How do we protect your information?
We follow the Information Commissioner’s Office’s recommendations for our own data security.
1. We securely hold the minimal amount of personal data for our competition entrants, for those on our mailing list, for those buying tickets (in conjunction with our third-party box office), for those who submit feedback forms, for the publicists and agents with whom we deal and, of course, for our speakers and judges.
2. We will use your personal data solely for Festival and competition purposes.
3. We will keep and use this data unless and until we are asked to remove it by the person concerned, or when we no longer have any need for it.
4. Save for emails that we send in order to service any data that we legitimately hold and can process, we will only send you emails and other communications if you have consented to receive them and where you have consented to our keeping your personal data on our records, which we will do so securely. This will be used solely for Festival and competition purposes.
5. We will only send you emails or other documents necessary for Festival or competition purposes.
6. We NEVER retain any credit or debit card information

Cookie Policy

Cookies are small text files which are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or application. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain the website name and anonymous information, made up of digits and numbers.

Analytical Cookies

We use Google to generate ‘analytical’ cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around the site whilst they’re using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works. For example: By making sure users are finding what they need easily.

Functional Cookies

These cookies are usually set in response to actions made by you. For example: By entering the Competitions online will set cookies to ensure the journey is correct and forms are valid. If you accept our ‘analytical’ cookies, two cookies (“civicAllowCookies” and “civicShowCookieIcon”) will be used to store your preferences.

Necessary Cookies

Cookies will need to be accepted to be able to carry out certain functions such as on-line purchases.

Finally our website may use links to third party websites such as social media sites and YouTube which create their own cookies. Please visit these sites directly to view their cookies policy.