Even the world of rights faced a shift in business as licensors first paused to consider how their business might change in the face of multiple book industry conferences canceling and going virtual. First the London Book Fair was cancelled only two weeks before it was scheduled to open, then Barcelona, then New York, and on and on up until the Beijing Book Fair went fully virtual.
The lastest change in rights fairs was confirmed this week with the announcement of the Virtual arm of the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the largest and most comprehensive rights fairs in the world. As of right now, organizers still plan to hold an in-person conference, but it's unknown how successful (or how well-attended) it will be as large publishers from around the world have pulled out of attending, and even the guest of honor country for this year, Canada, have postponed their attendance until next year.
Here at GPC, we intended to make this our first big year back on the conference circuit, and were making plans to attend Frankfurt until COVID-19 hit. After seeing the issues other exhibitors and agents hand with receiving refunds when fairs canceled or went virtual, we made the difficult decision to stay home but do our best to put forth a strong presence online as we could by registering as virtual attendees where we could.
With the exhibition companies making it as easy as possible to create an online catalog presence, we're taking advantage of the opportunity to showcase our clients at both the Beijing International Book Fair (which is virtual only) and Frankfurt. Beijing is launching this week and the Frankfurt online show will be up and running in September.
