Did The New Yorker Festival Save The New Yorker From McKinsey?

Much has been made of The New Yorker‘s exemption from Conde Nast’s summer-long apocalyptic McKinsey evaluation. Were they spared the humiliation because Si Newhouse has a soft-spot for the magazine? Was it because David Remnick saw the writing on the wall early and acted accordingly; you may recall New Yorker writers (and Remnick) bunked with friends during the Inauguration. Perhaps it’s because the New Yorker has used its website for more than just a subscription channel! Maybe it’s all of the above. However, maybe it also has a leettle something to do with the New Yorker Fesitval.

The Festival, currently it its tenth year, is a weekend-long event packed with panels, readings, discussions, and walking tours, all featuring New Yorker writers and popular figures from world of intelligentsia (be it television, movies, music, books, or politics). The weekend routinely sells out almost immediately — Calvin Trillin‘s tasting walk is a near impossible ticket — and at the current (low end) price of $27 a pop for the Friday Fiction Night events that’s a nice little bundle of cash for the magazine.

Events are now considered de rigueur for print publications — the New York Times and The Economist routinely throw them now — but the New Yorker set the bar with their Festival and perhaps the most amazing part is that no one else at Conde Nast thought to follow suit.

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