At a past iteration of the Liber program in Spain, an industry focused annual fair event that alternates between Barcelona and Madrid. Image: Ifema Liber
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
October 4 to 6, Liber Returns to Madrid
As the spring season for conferences, trade shows, and books fairs picks up pace, an autumn entry has announced its dates.
Spain’s Feria internacional del libro is the program, you’ll remember, that alternates its venue each year between Bardelona and Madrid. This year, the show is to be held in Madrid, and the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (the Federation of Publishers’ Guilds of Spain, FGEE) is announcing to the news media that its dates are set for October 4 to 6, staged by Ifema Madrid.
Liber this year will be in its 39th edition, and is promoted by the publishers’ guilds and is to have an association with Mexico’s main fair at Guadalajara as it capitalizes on some of the digital build-out the program has handled during the ongoing coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic.
In making its announcement, the federation refers to strong growth forecasts in for the Ibero-American markets, which should indicate robust export activity across the Spanish-language world.
Set at the Madrid Fairgrounds, in Hall 14.0, the emphasis this year, the publishers say, is to include “special attention to digital content, new publishers, self-publishing, and intellectual property.
“In this sense,” organizers say in their statement, “the fair is specially designed to bring together a complete representation of publishing companies and entities, distributors, literary agents, multimedia, suppliers, professional associations, service companies, and so on.”
The goal is to affirm the business-orientation of the event, they say, with Liber as a “showcase that will offer the broadest overview of current editorial production, becoming, for three days of activity, a focus of professional attraction for authors, booksellers, illustrators, and other actors in the sector.”
Hybrid Support From an In-Person Show
At a past iteration of the Liber program in Spain, an industry focused annual fair event that alternates between Barcelona and Madrid. Image: Ifema Liber
Moving to a more hybrid format than has been used in the past, this fully in-person event expects to incorporate the “Liber LiveConnect” digital platform and to keep it “active for one year, expanding the scope of the fair in time and space, generating content and complementing face-to-face communication and networking beyond the Liber dates themselves.”
For industry professionals, the Liber plan includes programming such as the “Buyers Program,” created in association with the Spanish government’s economic and commercial promotion offices, to support distributors, booksellers, and librarians, and publishers buying books for translation and publication beyond the Spanish-language markets themselves.
Details of programming are to be forthcoming soon, with emphasis this year on “issues related to sustainability and the environment, the promotion of reading, challenges in bookselling, and more.
We’ll bring you more information and it’s made available to us.
At a past iteration of the Liber program in Spain, an industry focused annual fair event that alternates between Barcelona and Madrid. Image: Ifema Liber
More from Publishing Perspectives on Feria international del Libro is here, more on the Spanish market is here, while more on the international Spanish-language markets is here. and more from Publishing Perspectives on book-to-film and words-to-screen adaptation development is here.
Comments
It’s not the 39th edition, but the 41st.