Reed to retire BookExpo

BookExpo, the largest publishing trade show in the US, is being retired by Reed Exhibitions, reports Publishers Weekly.

Book-focused events BookCon and Unbound will also be retired. Organiser ReedPop, a subdivision of Reed Exhibitions, said that given ‘continued uncertainty surrounding in-person events at this time’ it has decided that ‘the best way forward is to retire the current iteration of events as they explore new ways to meet the community’s needs through a fusion of in-person and virtual events’.

Event director Jenny Martin said ReedPop is talking to publishers, booksellers, and other partners to investigate how to rebuild the events. ‘The pandemic arrived at a time in the life cycle of BookExpo and BookCon where we were already examining the restructure of our events to best meet our community’s needs,’ said Martin. ‘This has led us to make the difficult decision to retire the events in their current formats, as we take the necessary time to evaluate the best way to move forward and rebuild our events that will better serve the industry and reach more people than we were able to before.’

This year’s BookExpo, scheduled for 26–31 May, was cancelled, with ReedPop hosting six days of free virtual programming in its place.

Category: International news