People standing and waiting in front of the deep arched stone doorway of an old building
1,100 passes · 740 gone · box office opens 08.30

Passes

Three of them, priced by how many hours they buy. No tiers, no early bird, no code that makes it cheaper if you know somebody.

The whole price list
€18One day, any day
€74All six days
€140Six days, invoiced to a company
+€14Any bench session, on top
Pitkali Vaults, Tuesday 08.34 — four minutes after the box office opened
Set by hand, same as the grid

What each one buys you, in hours

Where the €74 goes
€31Rooms, insurance and the chairs
€18Fees and beds for thirty-one people
€12Stewards, sound and the hearing loops
€07Printing six hundred sheets and the hoarding
€06The forty day passes we hold back at €18
€18one day

Day pass

Twelve hours, 09.00 to 21.00, on whichever day you name when you buy. Every talk with a free seat, the courtyard, the wall walk and the long table if there is room at it. You cannot move it to another day after 25 April.

12 hoursAny room with a seat620 sold
€74six days

Six-day pass

Seventy-two hours of programme for the price of just over four days. The only pass that gets you into the 20.00 readings, which hold ninety and are the first thing to go. Includes the Saturday long table, which day passes pay €9 for.

72 hoursReadings included118 left
€140six days, invoiced

Company pass

The same seventy-two hours with a VAT invoice and a name you can change once, up to 48 hours before. It costs more because companies can pay more, and the difference is what keeps forty of the day passes at €18.

72 hoursTransferable onceVAT invoice
+€14A bench session. Twelve places, three hours, materials cost us €11 of it.
€9Saturday long table, 180 places, first come. Free with a six-day pass.
€0Under twelves, in the courtyard and the Vaults. Not on the benches — blades.
€0Companion seat beside every wheelchair space, in all nine step-free rooms.
A cobbled street seen through a dark stone archway, the lane beyond lit by late afternoon sun
05 — after you have bought

You collect it at a door, not on a phone

08.30box offices open, all five of them
20.00returns go back on the grid, the night before
31/44returned passes resold last year

What the price does not include

Written out because every year somebody finds out at the door, and that is our fault rather than theirs.

A narrow limestone lane in hard sunlight, a wrought-iron lantern on the wall and shuttered windows beyond
08minutes uphill from the Vaults to the Glasshouse, and there is no short cut
Triq il-Fanal, Thursday 12.10 — the walk between two sessions forty minutes apart
01

A seat you are late for

At five past the hour it goes to the door queue. Six editions, no exceptions, including for the people who run it.

02

Bench materials

€14 per session on top. Leather, clay, paper stock and a blade you keep. We do not mark it up.

03

Food, except on the Saturday

There is a counter in the courtyard and four places inside the wall that will still serve you at 21.30. That is the whole list.

04

Parking, or any way round the forty-one steps

Four blue-badge bays on Triq il-Fanal. The Reading Room stair is listed and we have failed to change that four times.

118 six-day passes left

Tell us the day and we will write when a seat drops

Returns go back on the grid at 20.00 the night before, four or five a night. We send one message, to the people who asked for that day, and we do not keep the address afterwards.

€74
Seventy-two hours · eleven rooms · 184 sessions

Buy it, then read the grid properly on the ferry over

Full refund until 1 April, half until 25 April, nothing after. If you cannot come we resell it and send you the money.

Read the grid
Check the rooms