Are you looking for inside information on how the Beyond the Walls student showcase went?
Look no Further!
The Beyond the Walls student showcase event was part of York Literature Festival. It was held in De Grey 017 from 7-9pm on Monday the 9th of March 2026. This was an exciting event that allowed York St John students, graduates and teachers to showcase their work. The Events team set the stage for unpublished writers and allowed them the opportunity to share their work with others for potentially the first time and allowed published writers and other students and staff to perform in a place of shared creativity.
The events team and some volunteers worked extremely hard on the showcase, creating a schedule with many skilled creative writers, alongside a panel where the audience could ask the writers questions about their process and inspiration. There were also multiple activities such as guess how many pages in the book and blind dates with a book available to buy. There were refreshments as well as a table of previous Beyond the Walls anthologies given out by York Literature Festival. This event was done as a promotion for the Beyond the Walls 2026 anthology which is available to pre-order now!
Below is an interview with Chloe, Charlie and Emily- our events team representatives. We interviewed them before and after the event to see what was successful and what they enjoyed:
Have you had any struggles with planning this event and why?
All: Our main struggle with the planning of the Showcase was the tight time turnaround. The tight window meant that authors did not have a lot of time to create new work for the event. It also meant that there was not a lot of time given to promote the event, meaning we had to rely heavily on posters our team designed. We had to make the posters on the Monday, the submissions were due on the Friday and we had to confirm our performers on the 2nd March. It is also very difficult to co-ordinate a large team and also find enough performers and volunteers in said tight time frame. There is also a limit on catering due to allergens, so we have had to learn how to cater to dietary requirements under supervision of the university.
What are your opinions on this year’s anthology theme of sound?
All: We love the sound theme. We thought it was a nice broad-spectrum open-ended theme that allowed for a lot of creativity for the authors included within the anthology. We did however think that people could be easily influenced towards music so encouraged authors to think outside the box towards favourite or everyday sounds, nature and sounds that may provoke memories.
What are you most excited for within the event and the module?
All: We are very excited to throw the launch party, as we think this will be very rewarding. With the event we are looking forward to be able to allow young writers the opportunity to perform their work and get their voices heard. We just hope everything runs smoothly on the day and we can put on a successful event. This module will give us a lot of experience for working and hosting events.
AFTER
What do you feel was the most successful part of the event and what will you do differently for the launch party?
Charlie: I feel the most successful thing was the panel as we had a lot of audience participation with some amazing questions into the inside of our reader’s work. I believe what I would do differently would be to market the event better and to more people and have our timing down a lot more.
Emily: I definitely agree with Charlie that the panel was really successful and insightful. I really enjoyed it. I think we also could have benefitted from going through the questions before hand to make sure none were the same, but to be honest I think that related to the timing and by the time the questions were all in we didn’t have much of a chance to look at them.
Chlöe: Definitely our panel! it was amazing to see the audience respond so well to our writers, it gave us deeper insight on how they felt about our event and felt really rewarding to read each question, for the launch party, I think now we have a better grasp of the roles we naturally fall into, and how long it takes us to get ready, this time we will be more on top of things with getting prepared behind the scenes…I also think there should be stronger communication with marketing the event! our last event was successful, but less people and a different demographic than we originally planned! we know physical promotion works a lot more effectively.
Would you recommend the events and marketing team to students taking this module next year? If so, why?
Emily: I would recommend events and marketing to next year’s cohort because I think it’s great for career opportunities and it helps you to build your confidence in a safe and supportive environment. It’s been really beneficial to find out more about what goes on behind the scenes of events and how marketing can impact the performance of an event.
Thank you for reading this post and down below is the link to pre order the 2026 anthology for Beyond the Walls!
Freya Green