Ä°stanbul Book Fair draws 350000 visitors
Published November 6th, 2007
This year’s Ä°stanbul Book Fair, which wrapped up Sunday after bringing together bookworms in Ä°stanbul with writers and publishers from numerous countries, has drawn some 350,000 visitors in the nine days since it opened its doors, the fair’s organizers announced.
Organized by TÃœYAP Fairs and Exhibitions Organization Inc., the fair, at which 526 publishers and nongovernmental organizations presented their publications, featured 250 events such as book signing days and panel discussions. Some 800 writers took part in these events, among them 35 writers hailing from 31 different countries.
The fair ran concurrently with the 17th edition of the ARTIST 2007 Ä°stanbul Art Fair at the TÃœYAP Fair and Congress Center in Beylikdüzü, resulting in both fairs contributing to an increase in each other’s number of visitors. The TÃœYAP Kids Club organized several activities such as writing, role playing and painting workshops, which attracted children to the fair as well. The number of children who visited the fair increased over previous years, reaching 80,000, and as a result children’s books became another center of interest at this year’s fair.
The major theme of this year’s fair was “Mediterranean in literature, literature in the Mediterranean,” with a number of art exhibitions and panel discussions entering on the same topic.
The Ä°stanbul Book Fair first opened its doors to readers in 1982 at the previous TÃœYAP Trade Center in Taksim. In 1987 the fair was moved to the TÃœYAP Center in Tepebaşı and in 2002 to its current location in Beylikdüzü, which offers a 30,000-square-meter exhibition area. Twenty-eight publishers took part in the fair’s inaugural edition while this number has this year exceeded 500.
Related Articles Over 280000 visit Frankfurt Book FairPublishers Association and London Book FairFrankfurt Book FairSouth Korea chosen for 2012 World’s FairWest Side Antiquarian Book & Ephemera Fair
