Europe’s biggest book fair has been pushed back from summer until October as the coronavirus crisis deepens. Last year 2.3 million visitors to the Madrid Book Fair bought 550,000 books worth 10 million euros ($11.4 million) at the two week event, so no surprise the organisers didn’t want to cancel outright.
Read the postponement statement here.
No word yet on the Lisbon Book Fair in Portugal, which usually runs similar dates to Madrid, but it seems likely Lisbon will soon join the casualty list.
Earlier this week the Tunisia International Book Fair was postponed, and now comes news that the New York BISG annual meeting is postponed until September.
The statement from BISG says simply,
The ongoing news about the spread of the COVID-19 virus made it clear that we could not commit to providing attendees, speakers, sponsors, and honorees with a safe and conducive environment for a meeting next month.
Yet as the global crisis unfolds and the US situation deteriorates by the day Book Expo America continues to look the other way.
BEA hasn’t tweeted since March 9 and the website statement of March 10 tells us smugly,
Many industry events outside of the United States, have had to make
difficult decisions about proceeding with their events. We understand the impact that has on the publishing industry and we want to be proactive and transparent about BookExpo.BookExpo & BookCon will proceed as planned May 27-31st, 2020. We do not anticipate any changes or delays to our event.
“Many industry events outside of the United States”???!!! On what planet are these guys living?
