Adam Ridgway: ‘I’m no industry expert, but I can get people on stage who are’

With his appointment to the job last year, Adam Ridgway became the fourth London Book Fair director in four years, the latest in a series of quick turnarounds after some very long-serving occupants to the post. In many other sectors, four bosses in as many years would smack of an organisation in crisis – a rubbish football team like Manchester United, for example. But unlike the current beleaguered Man Utd manager Ruben Amorim, Ridgway is coming into his first fair overseeing an event that is exceeding expectations.

When Ridgway and I sit down to talk a few weeks prior to LBF’s 11th March kick-off, individual registration is up a few percentage points on where it was at a similar point in 2024, when the show concluded with more than 30,000 attendees. “We’re happy where we are, though the big push for registrations comes closer to the show,” Ridgway says. “But we are bigger than last time around in terms of exhibitors and floorspace, we’ve basically sold out [with exhibitors] and it’s looking really strong. There have been some frustrations with the facility, and that does throw us the occasional curveball.”

Ah, the facility. We shall get to Olympia in due course, but does the recent high turnover of LBF directors matter? Or that Ridgway has no prior book industry experience? Ridgway, it should be said, is a trade-show veteran, having spent nearly four decades successfully running large-scale, mostly B2B, events in sectors as diverse as jewellery, broadcasting and oil and gas in the UK, Canada, Bahrain and Norway. He spent a good chunk of that time working for LBF organisers Reed Exhibitions. 

“I think it’s more important that you have someone from the events industry than books,” Ridgway says with a laugh. “I don’t think it would be wise to get an editor or a translation rights agent to do what I do. But, I’ll be honest, when I started [in April 2024] I had to come to grips with the book trade in a short amount of time. I’ve found, over the years as an event director, that this is your best time: you meet with decision-makers, find out what makes an industry tick and see everything fresh. Maybe that’s why it might not be a good idea to have such long-serving show directors – they might get to a point where they’ve developed everything, it’s their baby, but they become stale, loath to change and will say: ‘Well, that’s always worked, why do something different?’ ”

Mount Olympia

Undoubtedly the first thing Ridgway came to grips with was the vagaries of Olympia. The Kensington venue has a Grade I-listed pokiness that is serviceable for the book fair’s size when at full capacity – and LBF will be by far the biggest event held at Olympia this year – but presents a challenge when it is in the midst of a multi-year renovation with parts of the halls off limits.

Ridgway says: “We have been asked by the industry to run this show at Olympia. So, we are running the show at Olympia, but we are absolutely at the limit of what Olympia has capacity for and it’s a very awkward facility. You know what I would want? One nice, big, rectangular room that everyone fits in. Bingo, job done. But I don’t have that, I have three rooms, two of which have balconies and upper floors. And large parts of the facility are just off limits, and probably will be until 2027. The problem when you are at capacity for the show is that you end up having to make compromises.”

Those compromises this year include moving the International Rights Centre (which has been split up and bounced around over the past few editions) entirely to the first floor, but it will be in different halls with about 30 metres separating the two parts. There will inevitably be a few moans about this over the course of the fair – agents, bless them, do love a moan. Having to walk about 15 paces to your next meeting does fall into the first-world problems camp, but then those who rent IRC tables (and stands in the main halls), are paying very dear first-world prices.

Ridgway says: “Look, I share the frustrations. It’s frustrating for all of us. I would very much like to have the IRC in one space. It causes no end of trouble for us. There are additional complications and effort in terms of scanning people, registration, hall allocations… Getting everybody into one space is the ultimate objective.”

Continues…