By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief
The publishing world will gather in West London next week for the 2026 London Book Fair, the first major fixture on the publishing industry’s international calendar. Set to run from March 10-12 at Olympia London—the fair’s last show at the historic Kensington venue—this year’s event promises to be a typically vibrant affair, once again featuring an extensive professional program, and a sold-out rights center.Organizers told Publishing Perspectives that 2026 registrations are in line with past years—the LBF doesn’t report exact attendance totals but officials said roughly 30,000 attended the 2025 event.
“I think there is a lot of excitement around the National Year of Reading in the U.K.,” first year London Book Fair director Emma Lowe told Publishing Perspectives, suggesting that the biggest U.K. literacy campaign in a generation is helping to create buzz around this year’s event. Lowe also pointed to a meaty professional program and a slate of speakers that includes keynotes from Penguin Random House U.K. CEO Tom Weldon, Pan Macmillan CEO Joanna Prior, and Audible CEO Bob Carrigan. “I’m also looking forward to authors like Alice Oseman, and A.F. Steadman, which will be quite huge for us.”
But amid all the topics of discussion at this year’s fair—from rights deals to the still-booming audiobook market, the rise of AI, threats to the freedom to publish and to read, declines in reading, and of course a strained geopolitical landscape amid war and economic uncertainty—the future of the fair itself will also likely be a hot topic of conversation.
In January, LBF officials announced that the fair would be moving to Excel center in East London’s Docklands for 2027, an announcement that likely triggered some bad memories following the fair’s one year interlude there two decades ago.
“I was on the team that took the show to Excel in 2006, and it is etched in my soul as one of the things I’m least proud of,” Lowe says. “I understand very clearly why it didn’t work then. But that was 20 years ago. And I think there are a number of things that make me more comfortable about the decision today.”
Moving On
The show floor at Olympia London.
Lowe concedes that fair officials will need to “banish some ghosts” after the 2006 experience at Excel. But perhaps the biggest point in favor of the move, she notes, is the obvious reality that the fair’s current home at Olympia is simply not up to the job.
“The London Book Fair is the largest show that Olympia now hosts by some margin,” Lowe explains. “And the various developments that they’ve undertaken means that there is over 8,000 square meters of space that we can’t ever have back once the works are finished. If there were four halls like the Grand Hall at Olympia, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But there aren’t.”
While Olympia is “a beautiful venue,” she adds, there are simply too many things that can’t be fixed: There are too few toilets and food options. The meeting rooms are too few and too small, limiting the program and leading to people being shut out of popular sessions. The aisles are too narrow, and there is not enough seating in the exhibit halls. The Wi-Fi is terrible. Most importantly, the exhibit halls and the rights center are effectively maxed out, leaving no room for growth.
“I think the London Book Fair is important, and it deserves a chance to grow,” Lowe says. “And when you look at Olympia with an event person’s eye you can see all the things we can’t achieve there.”
Excel, on the other hand, is decidedly not beautiful, Lowe admits. What it is, however, is “purpose-built for scale and ambition.”
Fairgoers will no doubt agree on Olympia’s shortcomings. But the bigger question is how they will feel about leaving their familiar haunts in West London to head all the way east, to the Docklands.
On that score, Lowe insists that this is not the same Excel those fairgoers endured some 20 years ago, noting there has been significant development there and that transit to the venue has significantly improved with the completion of the Elizabeth line.
“I think that there is some work to do to reassure our international friends,” Lowe says when asked whether the very real improvements in and around Excel will be enough to overcome the generation of memories made in West London. “We will just have to create some new memories at Excel,” she adds.
In Five Years
No question, it’s been a busy first year for Lowe, who was announced as director last March as the London Book Fair’s new director—its fourth since 2022. But unlike her recent predecessors, who were forced to grapple with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, Lowe is clearly, ambitiously, looking to the future. With new technology presenting an array of challenges and opportunities for publishing, and with the pandemic now largely in the rear view mirror, Lowe believes the fair is on the cusp of a new era of importance.
Excel, the London Book Fair’s new home in 2027.
“I think that’s 100% true,” Lowe says when asked if the move to Excel is a bet on the future of publishing—and the book fair.
“There are new markets emerging within the publishing ecosystem that we haven’t really maximized, gaming and podcasts and those kinds of adjacencies. There are opportunities in audio. I know it’s a huge thing to take this many people to a new place. But we just ran out of road at Olympia.” she says. “And I genuinely think that the outcomes are better when at least some of the interaction that you have is face-to-face. Especially when you’re working in a creative industry. Nobody yet has said to me, look, I don’t think face-to-face works anymore.”
And Lowe speaks from experience—publishing experience. In addition to being a former head of sales for the London Book Fair, she spent nine years as commercial director at The Bookseller, and most recently served as head of events at HarperCollins U.K.
In announcing her appointment, Gareth Rapley, LBF’s Interim Portfolio Director (who also served as director of the fair for two years) cited Lowe’s “well-rounded understanding of the book industry,” saying it made her a perfect fit to lead the fair forward after what he called “a time of great change” in the wake of the pandemic.
For her part, Lowe says the London Book Fair job wasn’t on her radar until she was approached by Rapley. But it turned out to be an offer she couldn’t refuse. “I was very happy at HarperCollins,” she says. “But my granny always used to say, ‘what are you going to wish you’d done in five years?’ So, when Gareth offered me the job I was like, if I don’t take it, in five years I’ll be kicking myself.”
On that theme, Lowe agrees that it will likely take a few years for fairgoers to get settled at Excel. “In the first year, we’re going to have to ask for people’s patience,” she says. But the improved facilities, the room to innovate and grow with the industry, and faith in the future of both publishing and book fairs, make the move a necessary one, Lowe believes.
“We’ll bid a fond farewell to Olympia,” Lowe said of this year’s event, “and look forward to the new chapter at Excel in 2027.”
Headed to the London Book Fair? Check out our Program Highlights here.