Anarchist Bookfairs of the World

Wednesday, 20 November 2024

Advice on how to organise an Anarchist Bookfair

1. Check to see if there are any other book fairs or events on that day that would not be good to clash with. Think not just from the organisers point of view but also from the punters and the stallholders interests. Some distributors would like travel to bookfairs far away so its ashame when multiple events are on the same day!

2. Advertise your bookfair well in advance. Consider that if you want people to come from other countries, those with jobs, other responsibilities etc then the less spontaneous the organisation is the better!

3, Use all media! Do not rely just on social media! Paper flyers, stickers, posters and word of mouth are still very important. Make sure they get around well before the event and then do a "last minute" reminder poster campaign just before the event. Remember if you rely on Facebook you will get a Facebook response. Many radicals do not use or rely on Facebook - Let's be honest it's owned by a crap right wing jerk. Set up a unique website domain address and try to keep it live all year round. Blogs are cool! Use the same website for successive years bookfairs, it helps keep continuity and gives people a perspective on your bookfair. Try and get posters for your event to other bookfairs, send flyers to book distributors in advance for sending out in their mail.

4, Sectarianism in the anarchist scene can be just as bad as it is amongst the trots and commies. If you are organising an anarchist event then advertise and invite all anarchists to come, even if they wave a different coloured split black flag!! The anarchist scene is too small to play silly games of one upmanship when it comes to bookfairs. Consider that a newcomer to the scene may not be interested in just one branch of anarchist thought! If you want your event to be just for Syndicalists or Ant-speciesists then advertise it as so, but don't pretend you are an anarchist event which should have a diversity of anti-authoritarian opinion.

5, Provide vegan food at your bookfair or make sure people who are not local to your venue are able to get hold of it easily. Remember to help stall holders who are there on their own to take breaks and get refreshments. Make sure snacks are available all day long not just in the evening after the event when many tired stall holders just want to go home annd rest!

6, Contact local radical groups; activist, environmental, Trade Unions, Queer, all that are active even if not specifically anarchist and see if they are able to help publicise the event. Many anarchist bookfairs disguise themselves as Radical or Alternative bookfairs and invite non anarchist groups to participate in the event in order to increase the numbers likely to attend. This may cause some political friction but often works well.

7, If you use the seriously compromised medium that is Facebook (Instagram, Twitter etc) then you might as well post your event here! But also feel free to add your bookfair details to our sister Bluesky page here (we no longer use Twitter) there is also a Telegram channel here! And make sure it is listed on Anarchist News here!

8, If you have the resources try to organise a creche facility so that parents/guardians can be free of their little treasures and have time to take in the event.

9, If you are aware of stall holders travelling from out of town do your best to offer them accomodation so they do not have to pay for hotels etc (you may make new friends too!)

10, If you are organising an event where parking is difficult and/or expensive try to provide helpful information for visitors and stall holders that are coming from out of town as to where they can park easily and affordably.

11, Consider joining the new European Anarchist Bookfair Coordination Group or at least informing them of your event. More to follow but for now you can pass information to them through this site.

12, Think outside the confines of the day of the bookfair! Some of the best bookfairs I have attended have organised events for each evening during the week preceeding the day of the bookfair. Most of these were book launch events and best of all they were held at a variety of different but supportive venues. This meant that people had a chance to promote and discuss in details their books as well as involving other venues in the Bookfair event.

13, Think outside of the confines of books! Showing films, holding talks, discussion workshops, all these can be done during or around a bookfair event. The two provisos for this and similar ideas is though not to overstretch your organising group and also not to overload the day with too many events that the bookfair itself suffers. There was an anarchist Mayday Bookfair in London once that fell into this trap, many folk told me they were there but didn't have time to check out the stalls properly! As for overloading your group, events can be organised by others with the bookfair just acting as a platform or host, invite folk to come and do things at your event.

14, If you are providing tables, especially ones that are of varying shapes and sizes, the Gent Bookfair covers all the tables with white paper whilst setting up. This for one thing ensures the tables are clean and also gives a nice feeling of equality to the tables. Many stall holders will ofcourse bring their own table cloths but the idea I think is a good one.

15,Provide wheels! If you can get wheels, trolleys, barrows etc and even better people to help stall holders off-load their stalls from vehicles and into the venue that makes life a lot easier, especially for stall holders with disability issues or like me just getting old.

16, If you are expecting stalls or lots of visitors from other countries that use different currencies then it's a great idea to have a load of smaller denomination coins or notes that you can exchange with folk who may not have had time to do so. It's also good to have a load of change available anyway as many stalls run out during the day.

17, Consider making a verbal introduction to the stall holders, volunteers and other early arrivals at the very opening of the event. To explain who, how and why you are here, what will happen and what is acceptable!

18, If you are going to impose security controls (dubious or otherwise) such as a ban on photography or the confiscation of mobile phones. Then make this known in advance. Such policies however well intentioned may have negative consequences such as putting people off entering a bookfair. And remember that if somebody really wanted to photograph or record an event it would be easy to do unless we use airport style body scanners at the entrance to our events. A bookfair should be an open and relaxed event, if organisers want there to be discussions and meetings that merit security consciousness then they should be separate to the main event.

Monday, 3 June 2024

Anarchist Bookfair dates and details wanted.

How do folks.

The idea of this site is that all anarchist and radical bookfairs can be listed on one site - as well as many others besides! - so that there is less chance of date clashes and better advance advertising of events. My experience is that anarchist bookfair organisers seem to have a habit of using the same dates repeatedly which can be counter productive especially for those distributors and publishers -like me - who would like to attend them all! We know that many of the Bookfair weblinks are out of date but consider that some of you might like to see what was done as well as what will be done!

Please add information and dates below as a comment or better still send me an email with your bookfair details, date, website, poster etc. When it has been verified we will list it. We will delete comments once the information has been added to the site. Please email details to jon (at) activedistribution.org

Corrections, updates new posters and advice for other bookfair organisers are also welcome

cheerio

Jon @ctive