Strolling round the Festival Site

I've been wandering round the town while it's still quiet enough to move - up at the Festival site it's schools day, so the Festival bookshop was full of school parties queuing to have their books signed. It's nice to overhear young teenagers talking enthusiastically about books.
The Friends of Hay Castle have a pitch this year, showing a model of the Castle with the planned renovations, and offering limited edition mugs and tea towels to anyone who wants to become a Friend. I like the way the Castle has been done with the outline full of the pages of a book, linking the history and the books of Hay together - with the birds which are the symbol of this year's Festival flying above.
Alan, of the History Group, was there, very enthusiastic about September's history weekend when they will be having someone talking about Arms and Armour at the time of Agincourt, with skirmishes, someone from Tintern talking about calligraphy, and Anne Curry giving a talk about the Battle of Agincourt. He's also looking forward to the event in Brecon on 20th June - I'm going to try to get along to both of them, in costume (though I'll have to make some adjustments to my 13thC kit to come up to date to the 15thC!)
The Hay History Group also have a pop-up mini museum at the Library over the Festival, with some of the local artefacts they've collected.

Elsewhere on the Festival site, the Barclay Wealth tent is now the Tata tent (sponsored by the Indian steel magnate) and there's a Tata stand showing some of the research projects they're involved in. Good Energy have sponsored a stage this year - last year they just had a stand.

Tents are going up in gardens again, along the Brecon Road, selling a variety of things for charities, and the Masonic Hall has food, beer and crafts on sale, with live music later - one of the performers will be Alan Cooper on his fiddle.
Back in town, there's music at the Old Electric Shop, too, and cocktails in the evening.
And in the town square, the big marquee is going up for the Fair in the Square.