Beloved Festival Begins First Year at Crosstown Rivals

There are billboards around Westwood advertising the Target Children’s Stage for the LA Times Festival of Books. The small print on the billboard gives a little bit of information about that festival that some in West LA may not have heard: the festival will be at USC next weekend.

After 15 years at UCLA, a decision was made last year to move the LA Times Festival of Books to USC. So April 30 through May 1, when 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan takes the stage, it will not be a walk or 5 minute bus ride away for Westwood residents. It will be across town at USC.

“I was disappointed,” said Marissa Lopez who works at UCLA and heard about the move in the Fall. “Though I won’t miss the days of setting up right outside my office.”

She said she has gone to the festival every year since 2006. She understands why it happened. “It seems only right, though, for the Times to spread the book-love, but I’m not driving to USC for it.”

The LA Times reported that the move will help increase attendance because of USC’s central location, and access to parking and public transportation. The festival, which started in 1996, is the largest literary festival in the country and last year attracted 140,000 people and 400 authors.

The festival was not a money maker for UCLA and last year the university “provided $176,000 in services and funding to help stage the festival,” according to a statement released in September by UCLA’s Office of Media Relations. The LA Times announced the decision to move the festival while it was still in contract negotiations with UCLA for the 2011 festival.

General admission to the festival is free and tickets to panel discussions are $1. This year’s lineup includes Dave Eggers, rocker Patty Smith, French Laundry chef Thomas Keller, and children’s book author Mo Willems. There will live music, book signings, a cooking stage and a children’s stage.

Now that the festival has gone so have the thousands of people that descended upon the Westwood Village shops and restaurants every spring for the event.

Mark Perry, owner of the popular cookie shop Diddy Riese, said the book festival is a wonderful event and he’ll support it wherever it is. But he’s not happy it moved.

“It brought a lot of business and life to the village here,” he said.