Though rights trading remains at its heart, the Fair is now about much more than the books. It is about the meetings, the conferences, the introduction of new products, the talking time, as well as a once-yearly opportunity to catch up with old friends and put a face to those emails.
Setting up shop in the vast halls situated in the Westend-Süd district of the city were around 7,300 exhibitors from 100 countries, and the overall consensus was that this year’s Buchmesse was a busy one, with a wealth of opportunities for networking. The volume of deals was heavy, and publishers and agents reported full schedules.
Juergen Boos, the Fair’s director, said that this year's event had shown ‘new tectonic shifts’ emerging in publishing: ‘We can see the ongoing concentration of the publishing sector, but at the same time there is a plethora of new, creative players, including start-ups, tech specialists, investors and business developers in all the creative industries,’ he said.
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