In reply to Jim Walton:
There certainly should be a literature festival. The Bretton Hall festival run by Terry Gifford was always a quality event. Top line speakers yet Terry was always keen to bring in new writers. Regrettably the venue was "lost" and he was offered a "merger" with Kendal. It was shoved off into a small building up Kendal High Street and was poorly promoted. The powers that be had changed and the new brooms, just did not want to know about the literature side of mountaineering/climbing. It was a frought few years where I believe that genuine collectors were alienated. A very unpleasant time all round but thank goodnes that has died away now. More recently the literature side of the festival is mostly the BT Award. There are occasional book events at Kendal, but there is little or no focus and they tend to be poorly attended.
It must be difficult to pitch a pure literature festival I feel, so you have to have a couple of big names to pull in numbers. There should always be a theme to provoke discussion and TG achieved this although I guess it was hard work sometimes to keep speakers on track.
I recently returned from the Oakdale Climbing Festival in California and whilst the focus for this each year is Yosemite it has an excellent literature content with speakers welcoming book loving climbers. The 3 day event is nicely laid back, not as laid back as Jim Bridwell was, but a great atmosphere for debate and discussion with plenty of the great and good only too happy to be there.
Best of luck if you are going to take the lead and try to get something off the ground. Happy to help if there is a germ of a plan.