UK publishers left waiting after last minute Beijing fair postponement

The Beijing International Book Fair has been postponed at the last minute owing to the spread of coronavirus in the city, causing difficulties for UK publishers due to take part.

The fair, which was holding both in-person and virtual exhibitions, was originally scheduled to start on 25th August and run until 29th August. Organisers say they will release more information about a new date "as soon as possible".

In a statement on the the fair website, organisers said: "Due to strict pandemic prevention and control measures adopted currently, the organizing committee of the Beijing International Book Fair announces that the 28th BIBF originally scheduled on 25th to 29th August will be postponed to a later date.

"The organizing committee will closely follow the progress of pandemic prevention and control in Beijing and release the latest information regarding the 28th BIBF as soon as possible."

Earlier this year organisers said they would make Chinese assistants available to represent international publishers' titles, as the physical event was expected to be limited to Chinese and China-based publishing houses owing to travel restrictions.

International publishers who did want a physical presence were being offered a service called “SMART!Assistant” that would see BIBF provide assistants on-site during the book fair to present titles to interested Chinese publishers and forward on contacts afterwards. Alternatively, publishers could send books to a dedicated collective space at the fair designed to showcase the latest international adult and children book titles. 

UK publishers who were due to take part in the fair told The Bookseller that the last minute cancellation was "very difficult to deal with" but stressed the uncertainty around live events at the moment. 

Pinelopi Pourpoutidou, who deals with Simplified Chinese rights for Michael O'Mara Books, said the team had not been attending in person due to the three-week quarantine and had arranged a number of virtual meetings with their key customers instead. She said: "We only found out last week the fair was actually cancelled from one of our customers, I’m not sure if the UK publishers exhibiting found out any earlier than that. It’s obviously very difficult to deal with a last minute cancellation, but we have to get used to living in uncertainty these days. The information I have is that the fair is postponed to some later time in September and not completely cancelled, but any information we get is very vague at this time."

Tom Chalmers, managing director of Legend Times, said his team were happy to attend remotely and had scheduled a number of virtual meetings, adding: "With high possibility of events being cancelled at the last minute, our strategy at the moment with BIBF and other trade shows is to take advantage of our flexibility as a smaller publisher and plan activities that won’t be costly or will survive cancellation, such as meetings we can switch to standard online meetings if needed. The situation with events is far from ideal for all but we need to adapt our approach to a situation that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future."

In May the Shanghai Children’s Book Fair said it would welcome international delegates to an in-person event from 19th to 21st November if travel restrictions are not in place.