This year’s London Book Fair hosted its most extensive seminar programme and largest Market Focus pavilion to date.
 
The trade show at Earls Court from 16 to 18 April featured a 2,100sqm pavilion dedicated to 180 exhibitors from the Chinese publishing industry, the largest Market Focus area in its history.
 
The London Book Fair launched the Market Focus programme in 2004 as a way of showcasing one country or region each year and will shine the spotlight on Turkey in 2013. Next year’s partnership was formally inaugurated on the last day of the fair in a handover ceremony featuring China’s vice-minister for General Administration of Press and Publications Wu Shulin and general director of libraries and publications Professor Onur Bilge, and Turkish author Hakan Gunday.
 
In total, the 2012 London Book Fair attracted 1,500 exhibitors from 57 countries with 70 new international exhibitors. Show organiser Reed Exhibitions said the list included five new countries and regions: Brazil, Hungary, Hong Kong, Lithuania and Flanders.
 
Visitor numbers are subject to ABC audit and have not yet been released, but a spokesperson said the event had previously attracted at least 24,500 publishing professionals. Last year’s London Book Fair attracted 24,802 attendees, a seven per cent year-on-year increase, with 14,438 visitors.
 
A major highlight of the event was its 400 seminars, up from 300 last year. Other areas of growth this year included the International Rights Centre, which housed 584 tables, as well as the Digital Zone in Earls Court Two, which added a second seminar theatre this year and featured a dedicated app development area.
 
The London Book Fair returns to Earls Court from 15 to 17 April 2013.
 
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