Popular with the public, economically precarious: does the Leipzig Book Fair have a future?

Oliver Zille was director of the Leipzig Book Fair for almost 20 years. Now the traditional exhibition has to reorient and realign itself under Astrid Böhmisch. The publishing industry is under great pressure. We asked three experts for their assessment of what the future of the book fair could look like.

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You can’t find more enthusiasm for reading anywhere

That depends primarily on the large publishers. Without them, the Leipzig Trade Fair will not be able to be held in this form. It would be a fatal signal to the traditional book city and to eastern Germany.

The 2022 pop-up trade fair showed that program publishers in particular need contact with the audience. Where Frankfurt is too expensive for many and driven too much by international business, Leipzig can benefit: Curious readers can get to know small publishers here that can hardly be found in stores. Quite a few booksellers travel to the trade fair with their customers.

And “Leipzig reads”, with its more than 2,500 events, is a gigantic meeting place: you can get very close to authors, you can meet them in galleries, shops, living rooms, lofts. By the way, 18-year-olds can buy their trade fair ticket with the culture pass.

A more lively exchange and a greater desire to read cannot be found anywhere – I very much hope that this will be preserved.

The gateway to the cultures of Eastern Europe

We have close ties to the Leipzig Book Fair with our publishing bookstore, which has existed since 1990. We went through a turbulent history with her.

In the 1990s, with the support of the Bertelsmann Foundation, the great reading festival “Leipzig Reads” was launched and – not least through trade fair director Oliver Zille – the gateway to the cultures of Eastern Europe was opened. It also created a large stage for independent publishers. It is also thanks to this commitment to content that the book fair achieved international recognition.

Many publishers are now fearing a realignment.

Peter Hinke

Now, with Oliver Zille’s departure, many publishers fear a realignment of the trade fair towards commercialization and cost explosions.

We very much hope that the book fair (whose owners are the Free State of Saxony and the city of Leipzig) will be able to manage the balancing act of reconciling commercial requirements with the content of this industry meeting, then this colorful, wonderful fair will have a future.

Skepticism prevails in the book industry

The restart after a three-year Corona break seemed to have been successful. 274,000 people crowded the exhibition halls for four days, almost as many as before the pandemic. The book fair director at the time, Oliver Zille, spoke of a “brilliant comeback”.

This year the same number of exhibitors and a similar audience are expected, although the latter will, as usual, be nicely dressed up by school classes and the ever-growing manga fair. Skepticism prevails in the book industry.

This is due to Zille’s resignation and his successor Astrid Böhmisch. This has previously acquired its merits primarily in marketing and will pay greater attention to ensuring that the trade fair generates returns. Medium-sized publishers and large general interest publishers, on the other hand, are asking themselves more intensively than ever whether they still want to afford trade fair appearances and whether the effort and return are still worth it for them, especially as stand rents continue to rise.

Leipzig is considered a public fair, a place for encounters. But is that enough in times of constant declines in sales?