Trading in the 2024 International Rights Center at London Book Fair. Image: LBF
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
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A Gain of 5 Percent: 550 Trading Tables
In a conversation for our forthcoming interview with Adam Ridgway—whose first turn as director of London Book Fair is set for March 11 to 13—the trade show’s “IRC” or International Rights Center comes up.
“I’m very pleased this year,” he tells Publishing Perspectives, “that we’ve managed to increase the size of the area for the IRC” at Olympia London.
That’s no mean feat. All warnings are that the hulking barreled-ceilinged events center on Hammersmith will have even a bit less space for the show than it did last year, and real relief in space isn’t anticipated until 2027. The renovation project called “London’s most ambitious transformation” by its developers seems to be living up to that slogan, and trying to fit the 25,000-attendee trade fair into has become a moving target.
Adam Ridgway
In what sounds like the moment Alice eats the cake and the room becomes much too small for her, Ridgway talks about contending with shifting floor space allocations, making the show’s plans at times a moving target.
The news about the rights center, however, Ridgway says, is that it will be entirely on first floor this year. (For Americans, that’s second floor.)
Having held a section of ground floor in the past two years’ London Book Fair layout, this year it crosses both the National Hall and Grand Hall—operating under both glass barreled ceilings—and its accommodation of rights professionals and their meeting guests will have risen by 10 percent to a total 550 tables.
The purple areas of the 2025 London Book Fair floor plan are allocated to the International Rigths Center, all on first floor. Image: LBF
The graphic above, provided to us for this article, indicates the floor plan’s coverage of the International Rights Center at London Book Fair this year, with the pertinent area in purple.
Key Agencies in London’s IRC
Rights trading in the International Rights Center at the 2024 London Book Fair. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Porter Anderson
Among some of the most recognized agencies confirmed in their bookings of tables in London’s rights center in March area;
- Aitken Alexander Associates
- Andrew Nurnberg Associates International
- Creative Artists Agency
- Curtis Brown Agency
- David Higham Associates
- The Wylie Agency
We’ll have more of our interview with Ridgway in coming days, but many who know the London show to be the year’s first major rights-trading forum will be glad to see the larger capacity and commanding positioning of the center.
“At the heart of LBF is our International Trade Centre (IRC),” the show’s self-descriptive copy reads, “where there is the opportunity to create meaningful relationships and meet new and existing contacts. Offering private meeting spaces and exclusive services, the IRC provides rights professionals opportunities to sell rights during a critical buying time for the industry.”
And that’s exactly what delineates a trade show from the standard book fair. Despite the London event’s name—which at times has misled even filmmakers to mistake it for a true book fair—the industry’s international rights-trading business is the core interest.
The entry to the ground-floor part of the International Rights Center at London Book Fair in 2024. In 2025, the entire ‘IRC’ will be on the first floor. Image: LBF
More from Publishing Perspectives on London Book Fair is here, more on rights and licensing in the book industry is here, more on book fairs and trade shows in the world publishing industry is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s publishing market is here.
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