In April 2016, the London Book Fair (LBF) will be celebrating its 45th anniversary as the international fair for book publishing and trade. Publishers all around the world are excited about it. But they are not the only professionals looking forward to it. Let’s take a peek at the origin and evolution of LBF.
The LBF owes its origin to the 1971 fair then known as the Small and Specialist Publishers’ Exhibition, Lionel Leventhal played a major role in the creation of this fair. Since its origin the LBF saw many developments including a rise in seminars, foreign visitors (especially American) and the growth of the Rights Centre. Currently the London Book Fair has gone far beyond browsing and bookselling to incorporate marketing, rights trading, networking and even investigating market trends. The LBF website describes the fair as “the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels.” It is not surprising that the LBF sees over 25,000 attendees arrive in London from 124 countries and exhibitors from 60 countries.
The LBF 2016 will take place on 12-14 April 2016 and the show timings can be viewed at the website. Let us now try to answer a few important questions regarding this year’s LBF. The place where the fair will take place this year is Olympia London. The visitors who are welcome include anyone involved with the content whether it is creation, distribution, sales or treatment. This means authors, editors, publishers, designers and a lot more content-related professionals can all walk the LBF floor. Interestingly exhibitors are not confined to giant publishing houses but also extend to the smallest indie publishers involved with fiction, academic texts, children’s books and the list goes on. The exhibitor profile spans over 1,000 international companies.
If you are a professional working in or associated with the publishing industry, you are welcome to the London Book Fair as long as you have a pre-booked ticket. This ticket can be purchased online after you fill an application form with valid details about you and your company. You can access the visa letter service once you register for the LBF online in case you are outside England. Once you have the ticket and the visa letter, you are all set to go.
