What happens at LBF stays at LBF. Why are most industry book fairs in the mid-2020s still partying like its 1999?

Thanks to ongoing problems with the submarine internet cables off the west coast of Africa (this post has been written over five days, grabbing rare moments of meaningful connectivity), TNPS has been in and out of consciousness lately, including during the London Book Fair. But this year the big LBF story was about the LBF itself, in the form of a New York Times article that sent shockwaves of righteous indignation across the western publishing industry, and divided informed opinion into two camps – those that agreed the article had made some valid points, and those that like to party.

But let me start with a comment on LinkedIn by respected industry consultant Emma House, referencing an article in the UK’s The Guardian, that ran with the tick-box headline Romantasy, AI and Palestinian Voices.

No, actually, let me set aside Emma’s comment for a moment to deal with the more disturbing fact that this was the only story about the London Book Fair that The Guardian, a newspaper published and printed in London, ran about the UK’s biggest publishing event. Though in fairness that was one more than any of the other British newspapers could manage.

And that’s a message in itself. This was not a brass alloy nuts and bolt manufacturers’ convention, or a fair for dry stonewall enthusiasts, or a get-together for the national association of beach-pebble skimmers.

According to figures from the Publishers Association, released to coincide with LBF24, publishing contributed £11 billion ($13.9 billion) to the UK economy last year, and pretty much every newspaper worthy of the name carries a books section pandering to celebrity authors’ actual or ghostwritten output, and for the more cerebral, books written by real authors.

But as an industry, book publishing is a national news void unless there’s an Amazon scam to report on, or better still, an Amazon scam involving AI. It says a lot that the only meaningful coverage of this year’s London Book Fair by the mainstream media came from a journal published 3,000 miles away in New York.

And the dedicated trade journals themselves were hardly brimming with reportage this year, although The Bookseller (UK) and Publishers Weekly (US) did put in some meaningful time and column inches.

At which point let me wheel back to Emma House, commenting (LinkedIn) on The Guardian‘s token report. Said House, “Some important threads picked up here including AI in publishing which the industry is still grappling with and the technology is evolving more quickly than ever. Not mentioned here but my Shimmr AI colleagues gave 6 presentations and talks at The London Book Fair talking about AI in publishing.“

Shimmer AI of course just one of many AI operators at the fair, all no doubt worthy of a mention, but who knew they were there?

As with all such fairs, the Exhibitors Directory is mostly a joke. Seven exhibitors from Antarctica this year? At what point does this become misleading advertising? Imagine making a special trip to London just to launch your new project in Antarctica, only to find you’ve been conned.

Searching for AI? Sadly the LBF exhibitors directory was created back in nineteen-bow-and-arrow when AI, like Voldemort and Macbeth, was not something to be said out loud or uttered in polite company.

So trying to even find an exhibitor, unless you already know they were there, is a nightmare. And as for hearing about their offerings afterwards, if you didn’t have time at the fair itself, or finding out more online if you chose not to be there… In your dreams. What happens at LBF stays at LBF.

For me, this goes to the heart of the problems with most industry book fairs in the mid 2020s – that they are still partying like its 1999, when being there or relying on trade reportage were the only options.

Again, six presentations and talks from Shimmer AI, a company at the cutting edge of publishing’s next stage of evolution, but who knew?

For those actually at the fair, it’s beyond impossible to take in even a small fraction of what’s on offer, and even the more popular/better-hyped events had no room to accommodate more than handful of visitors.

Visitors, who could have been doing other things, instead wasted time queuing to get into a presentation that did not have enough room to actually let them in.

Let me bring in Latoya West-Blackwood on that point: “Sadly, I missed most of the main stage panels I wanted to see standing in long queues then hearing the venue was full.“

Industry consultant Carlo Carrenho echoed those thoughts: “Same thing! I could not make It to most events!“

Gareth Rapley, are you listening?

Well, no, of course not. Silly question. Just ask the people sat on the floor for the second year in succession because the LBF Director most definitely is not listening. (More on that below.)

Carrenho had posted on LinkedIn pre-event with a must-attend list of presentations on the Main Stage or the Tech Theatre, but as feedback drifts in from those who made the effort to be there, I’m hearing the same story over and over. Long queues followed by disappointment at being turned away, expensive catering, nowhere to sit, and no privacy for those trying to secure deals or have meaningful business conversations.

Per The Bookseller‘s Philip Jones: “For some agents the desks were too open to intrusion (from aspiring authors mainly) but also confusedly arranged (essentially split over two floors), and LBF would be wise to begin its messaging about how it addresses these issues for 2025 now.”

“The LBF would be wise to…?” Good one, Phil. Sadly the LBF nowadays seems quite content to let non-publishing people run the nation’s biggest publishing event, and one does not come more non-publishing than Gareth Rapley, who returned to London from the UAE where he had spent three years “organising events across the Middle East and Africa“, and whose previous experience of events ranged from “agriculture, finance, technology, and, most recently, the energy sector.” All worthy industries and sectors, of course, but the content industries are obviously not agriculture, finance or energy, and even technology gets given a hard time in the publishing sector.

Not here to argue that publishing is more special than any other industry, but the London Book Fair is not a car show or a homes exhibition or a tech show where the focus is on selling existing and future products. Trade book fairs are about selling ideas and rights.

And that’s why book fairs need directors who understand the industry, and why in pre-Covid times, under Jacks Thomas, the LBF mostly managed to balance the profit-needs of the organising company with the on-the-ground needs of the industry.

Of course, the arrival of the plague demonstrated all too clearly that, when profit and industry needs clashed, profit came first, even when lives were at stake.

I’m not privy to why Thomas left LBF when she did, but like to think she wanted to distance herself from the debacle that was LBF 2020.

But it didn’t end there.

Let’s remind ourselves of the cruel realities of 2020, when the London Book Fair elevated stubborn and insensitive to an art form as it took exhibitors’ money and insisted, week after week after week that the show would go on, even as the exhibition hall itself was being used as a temporary hospital full of Covid-19 victims, many of whom never left alive.

And then, having cancelled the event with six days to go, RX offered a miserly 60% refund.

And in 2021 it offered no refund at all.

“Pivots to digital” in that headline was of course used in the loosest possible terms. RX had no intention of going digital in 2021, repeatedly postponing the in-person event instead of facing reality. But after Bologna went ahead digitally, an embarrassed and compromised LBF finally jumped on the bandwagon mid-summer with a feeble virtual fair that stretched to the limits the notion of better than nothing. It was always going to be a stop-gap measure as RX counted the days until it could sell floor space again.

But lessons were learned. By RX, at least. Namely that, while LBF could massively expand its global reach by including more digital elements, greatly benefitting the wider publishing industry, the profits for the hosting company, RX, come from selling floor space and charging entrance fees, and that is not compatible with an expanded digital reach programme.

So sadly most of what happens at LBF (and similar fairs, not just this one) goes unnoticed, unreported, or warrants at best a couple of lines in the trade media.

The 30,000 trade visitors who were able to be at LBF this year is a tiny drop in the publishing professionals ocean, and for all the camaraderie and partying and socialising that evidently made the event worthwhile for those who were able to be there, what exactly has the fair contributed to the wider global industry that couldn’t possibly be there on those three days?

Individual companies and their reps have done their best to spread the message beyond the fair floor, but as above, the host organisers have a vested interest in making sure what happens at LBF stays at LBF. You have to be there for it to be meaningful – great for the organising body’s profit margins, but this “tyranny of the square metre” approach to book fairs, in the digitally-functional mid-2020s, needs to be challenged by the industry itself.

The LBF website sums it up pretty well. Live streaming? The last update on the LBF’s own official website is from 2022, and that comprised one single post.

LBF videos on Youtube? A complete waste of time even looking. A handful of authors getting one-minute soundbite sessions. It simply isn’t in the interests of the organisers to make LBF events available to the wider world afterwards.

Yes, LBF is great to be at, if you can be there on the day, and if you have a limited event bucket list, but even then you cannot be at two seminars at once, or even in two seminar queues at once. And that means you are completely reliant on industry reportage for the ones you miss, and that reportage may at best be incomplete, and often non-existent (journalists, like everyone else, cannot be in two places at once).

I’m not for one second suggesting virtual fairs can replace the “real thing”. As we saw during lockdown, digital-only presents its own unique set of challenges. But the “in-person” element, the “being there”, ought to be about much more than just socialising, dinners and parties. So it was deeply worrying, but not at all surprising, to see, as per responses to that The New York Times article, how many fair-goers considered the parties and meeting old friends to be by far the most important element of the fair.

Rights, after all, had mostly been agreed long before, and the fair signings were just ceremonial. Of course some rights deals were made on the spur of the moment, but who can honestly say that travelling thousands of miles to a fair like LBF to sit at a tiny table in an overcrowded space with no privacy and the clock ticking, is conducive to meaningfully discussing the merits of a book the potential rights-acquirer is seeing for the first time and cannot possibly have read?

Seminars and panel discussions? Well, we have to do something to fill in time between dinner and drinks, and it always looks good if we are seen in the same room as some celebrity industry CEO or celebrity author. But do we really care what was actually said?

And if these conversations really are that valuable to the industry (as many undoubtedly are), a live-stream or a recording or a transcript would help spread the word.

Just look at the casual reportage of the so-called keynote conversation, between Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp and Porter Anderson, that has yet to be reported on in Publishing Perspectives, despite being hyped by Anderson in said journal before the event.

Luckily Karp was a big enough name to warrant coverage by The Bookseller and Publishers Weekly, but of the lesser-hyped seminars and discussions, and of the many lesser-known brands exhibiting, who among the trade would know, if they weren’t there on the day?

Repeat for so many of the seminars and “conversations” and other presentations that potentially make a fair like LBF invaluable for the industry, but actually are just sideshows for the real function of RX at LBF: to sell floor space and get paying trade visitors through the door.

Once they’ve paid their fees and are through the door, who cares what the problems are? Not RX it seems. Last year’s problems were this year’s problems, and no doubt will be next year’s problems.

Lessons have not been learned, it seem, by the publishing industry, that, as all too often, takes the path of least resistance. Like a stereotype British customer in a restaurant that gets served an uneatable meal then smiles meekly and leaves a tip anyway, UK publishing persistently turns a blind eye to the LBF shortcomings.

Who cares if exhibition cubicles are the size of the Seven Dwarfs’ toilet? Two visitors? Sorry, one of you will have to stand.

Even The Bookseller‘s Philip Jones was irked by the way agents’ space was allocated, and he especially called out how “constricted” the big publisher stands were (implicitly suggesting the super-constricted spaces for smaller publishers were somehow acceptable).

While over at Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson reported on “a perceived greater compression of space this year than last,” and on “almost non-stop calls for general seating ‘instead of having to sit on the floor.’“

Trade visitors having to sit on the floor! Outrageous”! Someone tell Director Rapley immediately. He’s the man in charge. He’ll fix it!

No, hold on, Rapley is in charge of getting as many exhibitors and visitors though those doors as possible. And providing chairs would occupy valuable floor space that can be sold to more exhibitors. So let’s quietly forget about those extra chairs.

Which is exactly what Rapley did this year, despite “a tidal wave of complaints” last year (Rapley’s first LBF). In April 2023, Rapley responded to the no-seats complaints by telling The Bookseller that he would “continue to review options to see ways to evolve the fair and any opportunities to enhance seating for people to rest at catering and/or walking around the fair, to make sure we offer the best possible experience to people attending LBF in 2024.”

Weasel-words, instantly forgotten.

Rapley’s predecessor, Andy Ventris, lasted only one session – and that one too many – while Rapley has so far lasted two events and seems to be lined up for a third, which is somewhat worrying for the industry, but great news for the hosting company that needs someone in charge that will put profit before practicality.

Yes, Rapley assures us he is attentive to our needs. This was Rapley, talking to Porter Anderson over at Publishing Perspectives in 2023: “When I look at what our role is, as organisers of London Book Fair, it’s really about understanding the industry. What are the needs, what’s keeping people awake at night, what are the opportunities, where is the industry heading? I feel fortunate in my role to be able to speak to so many people to try to understand their needs, the needs of their organizations and of their members and collective groups, effectively, to try to ask what we need to do to reflect that in the short, medium, and long term?”

No need to count – I’ve done it for you. Three “needs”, one “need”. And there we have it. Tick-box event hosting by Gareth Rapley. Ask the industry lots of obvious questions because you have no idea what the publishing industry is about. Tick all the right boxes. Then look at all that extra floor space you could be selling, and get the eraser out.

Seats? If God wanted us to sit on seats he wouldn’t have given us nice comfortable floors with purple carpets.

The sad reality is that since Jacks Thomas left LBF after the 2020 Covid-defiance debacle, the UK’s most important book fair has been in the hands of people with no publishing background. It’s just another job. Books this week, chocolate teapots next week, who cares what the product is so long as the floor space sells!

But apparently the industry loves being treated like it doesn’t matter

This was Rapley as LBF24 wound down: “The words I keep hearing are ‘heaving’ and ‘buzzy’. I think this whole week has demonstrated once again that we are the essential spring fair for the industry.”

“Heaving” and “buzzy“? Interesting adjectives to use about a fair that at best only managed to return to 2019 levels, meaning Rapley has finally caught up with the Jacks Thomas years.

Also worth remembering Rapley was quoting “buzzy” as the summary term for LBF23 last year, although at that time the event wasn’t heaving, as trade media photos from that time show. More empty space, but no chairs. This year the American exhibitors were back in force (so less space to walk around, and still no chairs), and apparently there was even a sighting of PRH CEO Nihar Malaviya.

But one has to call out the “we are the essential spring fair for the industry” nonsense, and remind ourselves of Rapley’s hysterical panic last year when Bologna announced its 2024 dates to begin before London, causing Rapley to desperately reschedule the clearly announced LBF24 dates. If LBF is soooo “essential”, why would it matter of it comes before or after Bologna?

A reminder here of how Rapley whined to The Bookseller at the time: “We released our dates for The London Book Fair 2024 in October 2022. We were only made aware of Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2024 dates in March 2023, and the dates were decided without prior consultation with LBF.“

Outrageous! How dare they not consult with London first?

Now, before moving on to that NYT article to fulfil my obligations under the headline to this post, let me just add that yes, I fully appreciate Olympia is still being renovated, and maybe, in three years time, things might improve, slightly. But not by much.

Olympia Grand boasts floor space of 40,000 square metres, making it one of the biggest venues in London, but rather dwarfed by the 180,000 square metres on offer at the NEC Birmingham, which has 16,500 parking spaces, and an international airport within spitting distance.

Not that Birmingham can ever be an option. The Birmingham Book Fair just doesn’t have the same ring to it. But a book fair in London at least managed to attract a New York Times journalist, much to the dismay of some.

Wrote Rosa Lyster, “Everybody knows that the publishing industry is a rigorously stratified world, characterized by a reverence for hierarchy and a near-fanatical observance of ritual.”

Needless to say, many in the industry were less than impressed with that opener, and anything Lyster had to say after that was going to struggle to get a fair hearing from those for whom reverence for hierarchy is their publishing industry comfort zone.

Although amid some valid points, Lyster failed to address the real reason the big publishers get the prime spots: Money. They can afford it.

On rights, Lyster noted that first day “chatter” was about “an eight-way auction for Missouri Williams’s ‘The Vivisectors,’ which had been closed in front of a Caravaggio during the HarperCollins party at the National Gallery the night before.”

Well, you can’t argue with that. What better place to auction a book than in the prestigious National Gallery? After all, publishers publish art books. And what better backdrop than a Caravaggio?

And where else would a publisher choose to hold a party, but an art gallery?

Parties of course always feature heavily in book fair discussions, but perhaps nowhere more so than at LBF, where, if Lyster’s observations are anything to go by, the social agenda is the real reason for being there. The events and exhibits are simply the justification for the tax-deductible expenses accounts.

Smaller publishers and exhibitors will rightly object to such a cynical view, but who among us can honestly say it does not ring true for the bigger exhibitors?

Lyster again: “The significant presence of American film and TV executives added a glossy sheen, as did the constant discussion of who had been invited to which party, and who had stayed out latest.”

Ouch! The truth hurts! Just look at the many “How dare she!” responses to Lyster’s post.

And of course Lyster spotted the Gareth Rapley trademark “sit-on-the floor and think yourself lucky we let you in at all” approach to accommodating paying visitors, writing of the “frankly poignant spectacle of hundreds of people in business-wear sitting on the floor, tapping away on their phones, whispering urgently to one another and eating chicken Caesar wraps.”

Those of course being print-publishing people, because Lyster here missed an opportunity to pick up on another example of ritual and hierarchy. Line up the LBF attendees and you can pretty much tell by their attire whether they are traditionalist print people for whom wearing a suit and tie is a statement, or the digital-first folks that dress for comfort and rely on their products and ideas to make their statement for them.

But let me end here with a link to a lively rebuttal to Rosa Lyster’s “truly laughable article“, by Brianna Zimmerman, who also has many valid points to make on the positives of LBF, but I would note in passing that she apparently was sat “at the little tables atop the purple carpet, having endless meetings for 8 hours a day,” so she at least didn’t have to sit on the floor.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn Pulse newsletter.