literature
Audience recaptures Leipzig Book Fair
After a three-year forced break, the number of visitors to the Leipzig Book Fair is almost back to the level it was before Corona. photo
© Jan Woitas/dpa
The Leipzig Book Fair has returned after three years of Corona interruption – and it feels as if it had never been away. Nevertheless, there are concerns in the book industry.
After a three-year Corona break, the Leipzig Book Fair has attracted almost as many people as before the crisis. The fair announced that 274,000 visitors came to the exhibition center and to the “Leipzig Reads” reading festival at the end of the day on Sunday. “This is a brilliant comeback at the Leipzig Book Fair,” said director Oliver Zille. The guest country Austria also saw “all expectations exceeded”.
In the run-up to the event, the head of the trade fair had put on the brakes on euphoria. He assumes that after a three-year break, a trade fair will need a certain amount of time to reach its full operating temperature again, he said. But there were no signs of any restart difficulties over the four days of the trade fair. On the contrary: the stands were packed tightly, and long queues formed at book signings. Bestselling author Sebastian Fitzek signed for four hours on Sunday without the rush letting up.
Since Thursday, 2,082 exhibitors from 40 countries have presented their book-related innovations. According to the fair, that was 82 percent of the last book fair in 2019 before the start of the Corona crisis. At that time, 286,000 visitors were counted.
“What a comeback! The Leipzig Book Fair has proven perfectly why it is indispensable in the book spring. After a painful three-year break, it has once again shown itself to be an important forum for the industry and a public stage for books and reading,” explained Karin Schmidt -Friderichs, head of the stock exchange association of the German book trade.
“We think the fair went very well. There were a lot of people there,” said Patricia Bohnstedt, sales representative at Aufbau Verlage. “There were big question marks beforehand as to whether fewer people would come than before. But it’s nice to see that everyone is still interested in books.” On Saturday evening, the rebuild publishers brought former Chancellor Angela Merkel to Leipzig for a round of talks – one of many popular events.
Despite the success of the trade fair – worries in the book trade
But the hustle and bustle of the trade fair cannot hide the fact that the book industry is also weighed down by worries. Peter Kraus vom Cleff, managing director of the stock exchange association, said that the existence of small publishers was threatened because of ongoing cost pressure. The industry is pushing for structural publishing subsidies in order to preserve diversity. 80 percent of the publishers in Germany are small companies with an annual turnover of up to one million euros.
The Leipzig Book Fair 2023 was planned under the impression of the corona pandemic and was therefore postponed to April. Next year she will return to her usual March date. It will be held from March 21st to 24th. The Netherlands and Flanders will then present themselves as guest countries in Leipzig.