Jul 4

Jul 4 October Books Community - Events

October Books Events

At October Books, our events are designed to engage our local community and beyond, with an emphasis on creating positive conversations. The message behind the event is just as important as the event itself to us.

We want to use our platform in the community to showcase everyone who makes this shop tick, from our fantastic and talented local authors through to our creators and makers who stock our shelves with an amazing range of sustainable goodies. We wouldn’t be October Books without them, and our events are the perfect opportunity to share their work with the wider community.

Most of our events have tiered tickets. Offering the option to attend for free keeps our events accessible to everyone, an crucial part of why we put these events on. The easy accessibility of our events drives us to keep putting them on, because we know how important they are to people, and it’s always a factor when choosing what events to hold.

We want to inspire collective social change in Southampton and even further, through as many avenues as possible. Whether storytelling or hosting conversations about hard topics, we demand collective social change and the community be a focus of our events.

Some of our past events have included:

Book signings
Book launches
Author talks
Meet the maker events
Pop-up cafes
Seed swaps
Conversation groups

And many more!

October Books’ Social Impact

Our focus will always be on positive social impact, especially within Southampton. We host many great talks and events from some wonderful organisations, and these events are an opportunity for people to come together and talk. Through networking together we’re able to bring about positive impacts on our community and the world at large.

Through our hosted talks, we have a longstanding partnership with Transition Southampton. Their events on a range of green issues from composting to sustainable energy are always filled with debate, learning, and listening. We hope they inspire some take-aways for people to use and make their day-to-day a little greener.

The Reach of our Events

Despite all the challenges of the pandemic, we did have a major success story with our pivot to online events. Throughout lockdown we not only offered a way for people to stay connected and engaged in difficult times, but online events actually let us extend our reach significantly.

Local author Cheryl Butler gave a fantastic online talk for her book Jane Austen & Southampton Spa, which saw people tuning in from all around the world. This success inspired us to think bigger about future events and how to get the word out about the many events and talks we host.

It also opened a conversation about accessibility to both our events and the shop in general. When we were able to hold in-person events again, it became evident that hybrid events are the way forwards for us. We want our events to be accessible to those unable to travel, people with disabilities, those with hearing and/or sight impairments, and any other manner of situation that might make it difficult to attend or take part in events. We believe in the messages we put out and want to shout about them to as many people as possible! This means we are constantly striving to improve accessibility for the widest audience possible.

The Future of October Books Events

As well as constantly working to improve accessibility, we want to put on even more of the sort of events that are meaningful to you, our community and supporters. We want to co-create a more resilient community space that’s integrated with bookshop activities through pop-up reading rooms, poetry events, and other literary related activities.

We want to co-create this space with our long term supporters and help to facilitate the sharing of radical ideas from the books we sell, and the skills and knowledge of our established customer base — and do all this in a fun, creative, and joyful way, with inclusivity and accessibility as our priority.