THIS WEEK
The Frankfurt Book Fair is preparing for up to 25,000 daily fairgoers, after a number of trade figures were convinced to attend by the eagerness of industry colleagues
The Lead Story Frankfurt Book Fair 2021
Herd community: Frankfurt preps for ‘busy’ physical fair as delegates return
Tom Tivnan @tomtivnan
P
erhaps a first sign of the global book trade stepping towards normalit is this month’s Frankfurt Book Fair (FBF) which—barring a sudden fresh Covid wave—will have a significant number of people atending in real life, combined with the now familiar pandemic-era virtual events. As welcome as this is, the past two years have seen agents and publishers geting on with the business of rights trading without the tentpole international fairs such as FBF, London and Bologna. And while most regular atendees yearn for the return of the pre-Covid landscape, many say the past two years will have changed the nature of the book fair irrevocably.
First, though the dial on the number of
exhibitors that have signed up to atend FBF has not really moved since mid-summer— organisers expect around 1,500 companies from about 70 countries—more and more individuals are making the decision to go. FBF director Jürgen Boos says: “Those [exhibitor numbers] of course do not include publishing colleagues who will atend as trade visitors, without taking a stand, so we are expecting the halls to be busy... the numbers are increas- ing daily.”
FBF has spent a lot of money on its social distancing and hygiene protocols, including a state-of-the-art air filtration system for the halls. With numbers changing daily, Boos is not sure how many people will atend but he says his team is preparing for up to 25,000 daily fairgoers, as it has a special permit from the government. That ceiling is rare under
06 1st October 2021
FAIRGOERS WILL RETURN TO THE BUCHMESSE THIS YEAR, INCLUDING SCOUT DANIELA SCHLINGMANN BELOW
Germany’s strict Covid rules, given to just a few large-scale events: Bundesliga football matches, for example, can have 25,000 fans. United Agents (UA) made the decision in mid-September to atend, with foreign rights agents Georgina Le Grice, Anna Watkins and Amy Mitchell going to spend two days at the fair. Le Grice says it was a critical mass that convinced UA: “It has been a bit of a chicken and egg situation over the summer. No one really wanted to say a definite yes, but once a few Dutch editors confirmed they would be going aſter the bank holiday, and then some German editors, we decided to go for it. As the level of email submissions is so high, we felt that anything that might set us apart would be worthwhile. And far from struggling to fill our schedules, it’s looking like we’ll be facing the usual back-to-back half-hour meetings.” The wider Hachete group announced back
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