Ledbury Poetry Festival will have an international flavour next summer and be backed by improved equipment.

The festival has just been given a £8,722 Regional Arts Lottery Programme grant for new lighting and public address systems.

The money will be spent on lapel microphones and amplifiers, portable lighting with dimmer switches and a small portable stage or podium. A portable promotions board will also be bought.

Festival manager Dr Charles Bennett said: "We are always endeavouring to improve the quality of our events. We believe that the audience should be able to enjoy the performances and although the poetry remains central to the overall pleasure, we are certain that extra technology will improve the experience."

Dr Bennett said the festival would be the most international yet. Poets expected include Mimi Khalvati from Iran, Marc Delouze from France and Maurya Simon from the USA.

Other attractions include the Welsh/French poet Pascale Petit and Colette Bryce from Ireland.

Notable international performers include the Australian-born John Kinsella, who first made a name for himself in the 1960s with progressive avant-garde verse, and Hungarian George Szirtes.

British names already booked include U A Fanthorpe and the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, who will open the festival on his second official visit to Ledbury.

Mr Motion will give a reading at 8pm on July 4, the festival then running until July 14. In keeping with the theme, the dates coincide with American Independence Day and Bastille Day in France.

Other signed-up names include the young Welsh poet Owen Sheers, a protg of Mr Motion at East Anglia University's writing school, and Shaun O'Brien, a Forward prize winner.

Veteran poet Alan Brownjohn will also appear and teenager Caroline Bird, who is about to be published although she has only just finished her GCSE exams.