Publishers look only for blockbusters; most writers starve, yet festivals flourish. Why?

From Intelligent Life:

A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a literary event sharing a sponsor with Arsen­al FC. Literary festivals now stretch from Vancouver in Canada to Franschhoek in South Africa and Byron Bay in Australia. There are festivals devoted to history (Chalke Valley in Wiltshire), travel writing (Etonnants Voyageurs in St-Malo), biography (the Boswell Festival in Ayrshire) and individual authors (Tennessee Williams in New Orleans). Some collapse after a year or two, but many more take root, and new ones spring up: Write on Kew, coming to Kew Gardens in London in September, looks especially promising. 

“There’s been an extraordinary mushrooming,” says Nick Barley, who runs the Edinburgh International Book Festival. “I took some writers to a new festival in Brazzaville recently, and Iasi in Romania has just set one up. It’s a tidal wave, right across the world.” 

But why? Bookshops have closed left, right and centre; publishing is supposed to be on its knees; leisure hours are spent staring at screens. For literary festivals to thrive in this climate seems counter-intuitive.