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If there is one thing that Juergen Boos has learned in 14 years as director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, he says, it is that "nobody likes change".
But change is coming for the 2019 edition of the world’s biggest trade books show whether the attendees like it or not, and it will continue to do so over the next half decade as FBF reshuffles its halls to accommodate a series of building works undertaken by Messe Frankfurt, owner of the exhibition ground.
The main difference for 2019 is a move of the LitAg, the agents and rights centre, to the Festhalle, the concert venue at the fair’s eastern entrance which is at a slight remove from the rest of the halls. The proposed shift caused a ruckus at FBF 2018, with some agents saying the distance between the LitAg and other halls would make 30-minute back to back meetings "unworkable". Lora Fountain of Paris-based Agence Littéraire Lora Fountain & Associates circulated a well-received petition to try and block the move.
Boos understands the concerns and did meet with several agents at the end of last year’s fair to give them a tour of the Festhalle. He says: "I think they were quite happy at the end, as we showed how the Festhalle has better facilities, more restaurants, even natural daylight. I know it can seem to be a bit distant from the rest of the fair, particularly Hall 6, where most of the English-language trade publishers are, but we have timed the walk at about five minutes and we will put more minibuses on."
At any rate, Boos’ hands are tied by a domino effect of hall moves dictated by the Messe renovations, the biggest of which will be the demolition of Hall 5—currently the home of most trade publishers outside the English and German-speaking world—at the end of this year, with its replacement scheduled to be completed in 2023. And whatever objections to the LitAg’s new location, it has not dented sales, with the seventh consecutive year of a record number of agencies booking space (347 this year, up from 337). In fact, the Festhalle is at capacity, with a "significant" waiting list. The UK contingent is at an all-time high at 72 agencies, up from 66 at last year’s fair.
Overall fair numbers at this point are "stable" on 2018, which saw a final tally of 7,503 exhibitors from 109 countries. This year continues the ongoing decline in visitors from FBF’s home market, owing to consolidation in Germany’s publishing industry. But that has been compensated for by upticks in exhibitors from South-East Asia—particularly the Philippines and Vietnam—and "the Guest of Honour effect" with future featured countries Canada (2020), Spain (2021) and Italy (2023) all seeing a rise in exhibitor numbers.
Somewhat surprisingly, UK exhibitors are still coming in droves: after Germany, Britain is the biggest exhibiting country at the fair. UK exhibitor numbers are even year on year, says Boos, but ticket sales are up by around 5%—suggesting that the same number of companies are visiting Frankfurt, but they are bringing more people. Boos says: "Brexit hasn’t been an issue in terms of whether [UK firms] are coming to Frankfurt or not. Our team in the UK has been meeting with customers [in the run-up to FBF] as normal and nobody has really mentioned it. Maybe everybody is sick of talking about it."
Listen up
As is usual, there are tweaks to the events programme. The Markets Conference, a staple of the past few years—perhaps most memorable for agent Andrew Wylie’s caustic keynote in 2017, in which he rubbished HarperCollins’ world rights regime, which was followed up in 2018 by a tub-thumping defence of HC by its UK c.e.o. Charlie Redmayne—will not return this year after dwindling interest. So, for the first time in years there is no pre-fair Tuesday conference to accompany the annual Rights Meeting.
But there is a far greater emphasis of the trend de nos jours, audio, which includes a new dedicated space in Hall 3.1 and Audio Summit, an afternoon conference (on 17th October) featuring speakers such as Michelle Cobb, the executive director of the US Audio Publishers Association, and Michael Krause, m.d. of Spotify Central Europe.
"Audio has been prominent for many years, first really because of our Nordic friends," Boos says, noting audiobooks’ huge popularity in Scandinavia and Finland. "We are going to see more growth in audio streaming in the next few and it is going to be a very strong feature [of the fair]. But also, I think streaming in general: our C.e.o. Talk this year is with Kelly Luegenbiehl [vice-president of international editions at Netflix] which shows, I think, how traditional publishers are thinking about selling to the video streaming industry."
Perhaps the major other wrinkle is rebooting the self-publishing stream. Previously the indie author programme had been largely geared toward the home market, with most events on the weekend. The new-look Frankfurt Authors is aimed at trying to attract more international audiences and garner more trade attention. Boos explains:
"What we are trying to do is reflect how both self-publishing is professionalising itself, but also how there is much more crossover now with traditional publishing."
The past couple of years have seen a noticeable ramping-up of the current events strand, particularly in the Weltempfang seminar series, which Boos says harks back to politically-charged fairs of the 1970s. In the year of Climate Strikes and Greta Thunberg, it is perhaps no surprise that environmental issues are a big part of the programme. Boos says: "I guess we are thinking about the environment in two ways—the sort of highly intellectual debates we have in Weltempfang, but also how we as a fair can reduce our footprint. We do run [FBF] on green energy sources, and we work with exhibitors on how to reduce waste in stand building, and how to increase our recycling overall. It is about thinking about ecology on all levels."
One green initiative is linked with Norway, the 2019 Guest of Honour. The country’s Crown Princess, Mette-Marit, is travelling with all 100 Norwegian authors slated to appear at Frankfurt via train, with Boos scheduled to meet them at the station before accompanying them all to the opening ceremony. He says: "I’ll be there with a red carpet platform. Of course, this will be a security nightmare, but it is really exciting for us and it’ll be a perfect start this year."