Frankfurt Book Fair - world's biggest

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2005 opened on Wednesday 19th October.

The Frankfurter Buchmesse is the world's largest trade fair for books. It is held annually in mid-October in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.



Representatives from book publishing and multimedia companies worldwide come to negotiate international publishing rights and licensing fees.

Seeing as there are over 250 publishing companies in Munich, I guess lots of Munich people will be travelling there today or tomorrow, if they're not there already.

Wednesday to Friday is access for trade guests only. Saturday and Sunday are open to the public.

There were 270,413 visitors to the fair in 2004. They came to see 6,691 exhibitors showing 350,619 titles.

• www.frankfurt-book-fair.com
• Wikipedia - Frankfurt Book Fair

Any TT readers attending?

I'm not going personally, but my company certainly is! This is THE biggest event for publishers in the world. My mum used to attend every year, as did my old boss in Munich.

India is the Guest Country for 2006 Fair.

Interesting for the Indians on Board.

The Frankfurt Book Fair looks fairly interesting. I see Nick Hornby is reading (in German as far as I can tell) from his new suicide comic novel tonight (at Batschkapp). Anybody going to that?

The bookfair is good, but go on the last day as most of the stands sell off a lot of their stock at bargain prices. I bought a rucksack full of English books there last year for the price of a couple of paperbacks at Heathrow airport.

A couple of tips:

Take lots of cash, and in small denomination notes, as they often don't have enough change.

Don't be afraid to haggle.

They don't always advertaise that the books are for sale, so you have to go and ask at each stand if they are selling their stocks. Unfortunately, several of the large UK publishing houses won't sell any of their stock, but it's always worth asking.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not going to be around this weekend unfortunately. What time does it close on weekday?

mmm I might be wrong but I thought it was only open to the public on Saturday and Sunday? Am sure that is what I read in Journal Frankfurt yesterday.

I am trying to see if I can get my mitts on some tickets here at work

You're right PM, it'll only be open to the public on Saturday and Sunday, and I seem to remember that the tickets were only EUR 10 or so and you just get them on the door when you show up.

Of course if you can get VIP trade tickets with a free lunch included then so much the better.

When does it end? Is it this coming Sunday or the following?

It ends this Sunday, 23rd Oct