Having attracted a crowd of over 1 million for two years running, the latest Muscat International Book Fair, which wound up yesterday in Oman, managed to pull in only 760,000 this year.

That’s an impressive feat in its own right in a country of just 5 million, but will surely be a disappointment to the event organisers who will have been hoping to keep their membership of the elite million visitor book fair club.

Details are still emerging about the Muscat Fair and I’ll bring more coverage of the event in the next edition of the StreetLib-TNPS newsletter Publish MENA.

Meanwhile while the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair has been cancelled, and the UAE has closed all schools and colleges, it seems the Dubai Film and Comic Con went ahead as planned.

Sharjah’s Children’s Reading Festival is still, as this post goes live, on schedule, but it seems extremely unlikely it will go ahead.

But news is just in that the Riyadh International Book Fair in Saudi Arabia has been cancelled inline with TNPS expectations, and previously Iran’s Tehran International Book Fair was postponed until an undecided future date.

UAE’s Abu Dhabi International Book Fair cancelled. Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival, Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh IBF and Iran’s Tehran IBF now cancellations waiting to happen

Last year Riyadh pulled in one million visitors.

Another book fair record falls as Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh International Book Fair clocks 1 million visitors

While Iran’s Tehran International Book Fair ranks among the largest in the world with 2 million visitors the norm.

Per an upcoming post on TNPS, Thailand’s Bangkok International Book Fair (also a 2 million visitor event) has been cancelled as a live event, but efforts are being made to hold some online events and sales.

Stay tuned to TNPS on twitter – @thenewpubstd – to keep up with the developing coronavirus crisis as it impacts global publishing.