This year's London Book Fair is being celebrated as the 30th, and because Of illy former
association with it and this round-figure anniversary, some readers of Greenhill Book News
may be looking for the story of the Fair. But I feel as though I am being bumped, and regret
having to say that, although 1971-2000 covers 30 years, the event is not the 30th because in
one "switchover" year the Fair was not held. So in fact this year is the 29th anniversary, but
let's not upset a good party and celebration.
It was in the Spring of 197 1 that I conceived the event that was held on 5th November 1971, and was the forerunner of the modern London Book Fair. In those days library budgets were really worthwhile, and the new generation of small publishers was beginning to feel that librarian buyers were not sufficiently aware of their publications. Librarians have always been inundated with all sorts of paperwork, catalogues and mailingshots from the big boys, and the small publishers were not getting the attention that they felt their lists deserved. I was running Arms and Armour Press then, and was keen to show, and sell if I Could, my books to librarians. In fact, one argument that I used was that small publishers often produce better books than the larger publishers, because of the individual care concentrated upon them, but at least if the librarians saw the books they could make an informed buying decision. So I had the idea of a small exhibition. I circulated a note about it to a number of similar small publishing houses saying, "let's put on a show". And 21 other publishers agreed to join such an event.
The exhibition was held in the basement of the handsome Edwardian Berners Hotel, off London's Oxford Street. The location was chosen because of its proximity to the Library Association, and invitations were sent out to all public libraries in the Greater London catchment area, and the date was fixed because it also saw the monthly Council Meeting of the Library Association, which would be bringing to London a number of important out-of-town librarians. The first event was given the rather long, but descriptive name of "The Specialist Publishers' Exhibition for Librarians", and we arranged for it to be opened by Ken Harrison, OBE, FLA, then City Librarian of Westminster. The event was a great success. More than 200 librarians attended, and when we checked the visitors book afterwards and the libraries that were represented, we calculated a combined book budget of E41/2ni had been present at the event'.
As an aside, yesteryear the purchasing of non-fiction books for the public library system was substantial, and the specialist library-suppliers were major accounts for Arms and Armour Press, and, in the early days, Greenhill Books. Probably the top two or three accounts were library-suppliers, and there were three or four others in the top ten. But over the years there has been pressure upon library book-funds, and nowadays probably only one of the library-suppliers appears among the top ten accounts. This saddens us, because the British public library system used to be a jewel in the crown of British culture; but policies have changed, and instead of libraries being homes of culture and learning, there is now increased emphasis on popular paperbacks and bestsellers (nowadays nearly 50% of all library purchases are paperbacks). You may appreciate that this is not a policy with which we agree wholeheartedly.
Because over the early years our exhibition for librarians grew sharply, and changed name and venue, a number of people in the book trade think that they went to the first. The visitors' book for 5th November 1971 however shows that 95% of the visitors were professional librarians. The publishers who exhibited at the first event were:
- Adams & Dart
Leo Cooper
The Architectural Press
Crosby Lockwood
Arms and Armour Press
Dawsons of Pall Mail
Autopress
Hugh Evelyn
Clive Bingley
The Folio Society
Blandford Press
Gregg International Publishers
Frank Cass
The Library Association
Clematis Press
Lund Humphries Publishers
Orbach & Chambers
Thorsons Publishers
B A Seaby
Valentine, Mitchell
Seeley, Service & Co
H F & G Witherby
Based on the success of this first event, I had decided to make the event a regular one, but we needed additional expertise. So I invited Clive Bingley, then Publishing text books on librarianship, to be my partner. He brought to the precursor of the London Book Fair knowledge about the library world, and also undertook the administrative activities necessary for the event.
After an early-summer outing to Manchester, which disclosed the considerable logistical problems of a non-London site for a one-day event, the next exhibition was held in November 1972 at the Bloomsbury Centre Hotel, with the name adjusted to become "The Small and Specialist Publishers' Exhibition for Librarians", and there were 45 exhibitors; and in 1973 the event moved to October, was called "SPEX 73: The Small and Specialist Publishers' Exhibition", and it leapt forward in terms of' exhibitors to 120, and now took LIP the whole of the exhibition space available at the Bloomsbury Centre Hotel. It was "opened" by the Minister for the Arts, Lord Eccles, and for the first time invitations went out to booksellers.
Lord Eccles took the opportunity to announce on behalf of the Government that there were no plans to introduce VAT on books. This was at that time a matter of concern to all involved in the book trade, and hence the announcement was most welcome. In 1984/5, however, there was renewed furor in the book trade that VAT was about to be imposed in the 1985 budget by the then Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. It didn't happen. Clive Bingley and I met Lawson at the launch party for the 1985 or 1986 Fair, and he avowed that he had never had the remotest intention of putting VAT on books, but that he could hardly have announced the fact in advance of the 1985 budget, however concerned the book trade was.
In 1974 the event was held early in October, close to the Frankfurt Book Fair, so that it enabled overseas visitors to come to London for SPEX 74 and then go on to Frankfurt. A leading American co-edition publisher, known to many British publishers, came and other publishers followed his lead. Joe Reiner Of Outlet was a knowledgeable publisher, who could heft a book in his hand and make a deal on the spot for the purchase of a whole edition. Reiner's visit was most timely, and coincided with the new interest of American publishers to buy British co-editions, so that many American publishers came to visit the London Book Fair, and this led to some excellent business being done by the exhibitors. It certainly gave a strong commercial justification for the event. It was about that time that one exhibitor came rushing over to me to report that he had just sold a 1,500 copy co-edition to an American publisher. "That's great," I said, "I'll pass the news on to The Bookseller"You've missed the point," he exclaimed, "the real story is that I showed him material for this project in his office five months ago, and he declined it. Now that he's seen the finished book, he's forgotten entirely that he declined earlier, and we've been able to make a deal." There is no doubt that seeing finished books in the right display creates interest and sales.
For 1975 there were two changes: the name became SPEX 75: The London Book Fair", and the event moved to the Intercontinental Hotel in London's Park Lane, which continued to be the venue for the following year, when the number of exhibitors grew to 130. It was in these early years, when the event was held in proximity to the Frankfurt Book Fair, that a special dinner was held at Clive Bingley's club, the Savile in Brook Street, for key overseas visitors. A number of Commonwealth countries were taking collective stands, and would send either the secretary of their Publishers' Association, or a representative of the whole trade, and Clive and I would invite them to dinner. The older London clubs still have a unique atmosphere, and these were most enjoyable occasions. They also meant that when I travelled overseas, to Canada or Australia, although my Arms and Armour Press was a comparatively small publishing house, I received much kind and gracious hospitality, and it also led to special relationships with the booktrade magazines in a number of countries.
During this period of considerable growth there was some liaison and occasional discussions with the Publishers' Association. Many of the members of' the PA exhibited at the event, and the secretariat of the PA knew about it and would come along; they supplied information about the Fair to overseas visitors, but there was no direct support for the event from the PA. In one of these early years I was invited to lunch by the then secretary of the PA, and its President, and went along prepared to discuss some way to share the event with them, even perhaps enter into some sort of partnership, if they could offer official involvement and encouragement of the major British publishing houses to participate. But the thoughts in mind never surfaced, because we were told that, although Clive Bingley and I were nice folk, we were small publishers, we should continue to do our own thing, and the PA would be friendly, but they really didn't want to be troubled or have any involvement. Thus until the London Book Fair was eventually sold, in 1985, to a major international exhibitions company, it was the only significant book-publishing Fair in the world to be privately owned.
In 1977 we dropped "SPEX" from the title, the number of' exhibitors rose to 2 17, which caused us to move to the Intercontinental Hotel. and we moved the following year to the "Great Room" at Grosvenor House. and extended the event over two days. Again the list of exhibitors gree. this time to 315. We also experienced a remarkable problem --a sudden, freak heatwave. Those were the days of ridiculous trade unions diktats, and the hotel's management had not dared to put oil file hotel's air-conditioning svstern overnight. The temperature outside. at the end October, was 80 degrees but it was probably above 90 inside. We received any number of complaints, and Ieery strong message was passed to the hotel management. (the following year the weather was chill but the management had the air-conditioning put on especially for us just before the event and thus everyone froze). One memory from that time was the cloud of herbal smoke over one overseas travel book publisher's stand.
There were some interesting experiences in terms of how people learn how to use a book fair, react to directing them and the exhibitors, view of their stands. The first year that we were at the Intercontinental one publisher whose stand was positioned immediately as visitors came into the hall came and complained bitterly. He said that the visitors were focusing on the middle distance as they came in and just "walked past his stand. He demanded that the next year he he positioned in the centre of the hall, which we did. The following year we waited to see what the exhibitor at the position by the entrance would say, and indeed he came over to us. But he had come over to especialIy thank us for being, so good is to, in his words, place him "in the best position in the hall, where everyone who came in past his stand saw what he was selling..
We continued for two more years at Grosvenor House before implementing a major decision. It is surprising that an international centre like London has such inadequate trade- exhibition facilities: quite often it is the site management which tells the exhillition-organisers when they may hold their date. Our Fair had pivoted for several years on the Frankfurt Book Fair, but Frankfurt announced theie dates only two or three years in advance, whereas I reservation at Grosvenor House had to be made 4 or 5 years in advance. One year the London Book Fair ran right up to the eve of' the Frankfurt Book Fair, so that exhibitors at both Fairs had to leave London the very moment the Fair closed in order to get their books to Frankfurt. We feared that one year the dates would coincide directly, which would be impossible: or that another year too wide a gap would fall between the London Book Fair and Frankfurt to enable overseas visitors to take in both.
We felt that London now warranted a Fair that would stand on its own two feet, and not be an appendage to another event. We believed also that the English language publishing world could accommodate two book fairs a year, one in the Spring and one in the Autumn, to facilitate the liaisons that were increasingly necessary, and the interchange of information. So we took the policy decision to move the London Book Fair to the Spring, and to a purpose-built exhibition-site in the City of London. To position the event in the Spring, we either had to move from October 1980 to the Spring of 1981, (which we reckoned was too short an interval), or to hold the event over for 18 months, to April 1982. This is what we did, and the response from the trade was extremely positive. The number of exhibitors at the 1980 event had been 330; this jumped to 508 for Our first year at the Barbican. So 1981 was the "switch-over" year I mentioned at the start ofthis tale, when the London Book Fair did not take place.
The first event was organised, obviously, on an ad hoe basis. The second too. But when it was apparent that the Fair would be an annual event, a more durable organisational framework became necessary. The location had to be chosen and reserved, cornmitting LIS to a given size, and that number of exhibiting publishers had to be obtained. Sizes and layout of the table-top 'stands' had to be determined, some variations permitted, and in due Course we entered upon the construction of displaystands, with titles and logos and the provision of shelving. Development was exhibitor-driven initially, but the prospective visitor-profile took on increasing importance as we sought to broaden the appeal of the Fair, and Publicity depended on trade Journals such as The Bookseller, Publishers Weekly (USA), Quill and Quire (Canada), the Australian Bookseller and Publisher, and others, as well as liaison with the trade associations of Europe and the English-speaking world. By the time the venue shifted to Grosvenor House, a fully professional planning and administration system was in place. A full-time staff of (at first) three, including the director, grew to four or five, was aided by further in-house staff for the three months leading up to the Fair, and then by another twenty or more on-site for the Fair's 'run'. Most of the later were regulars each year, which made for smooth on-site procedures and generated a warm team-spirit in the somewhat bleak wastelands of the Barbican Centre. At the top of this staff-pyramid, I and Clive, with the Director, ran the strategy, the financial management and the promotion and publicity; sales, siteplanning and events, and other 'housekeeping' kept the permanent staff fully occupied twelve months of the year.
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