Registration for SIBF 2016 opens a year early due to high demand for space

Registration for next year’s Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) will open next week, a full year ahead of the 35th edition due to overwhelming demand from publishers to reserve space at the fair. The announcement comes as the SIBF is about to launch its 34th edition, taking place from November 4 -14 at the Expo Centre, Sharjah. 

The groundbreaking move comes in the wake of the overwhelming demand by publishers and exhibitors and gives publishing houses and cultural institutions sufficient time to reserve the exhibition space in the internationally renowned book fair.

This is the first time in SIBF's history since it was launched in 1982, where registration for the next year’s edition is open before the start of the current edition. This year’s SIBF 2015, held under auspices of the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) will break a world record with 1.5 million different book titles in 210 different languages, from 1,502 publishing houses from 64 countries, being displayed at the fair.

Ahmed Bin Rakkad Al Ameri, SBA Chairman, said, “Due to its prestigious history of almost four decades, SIBF sees continuous growth in the number of visitors and participations as well as in the volume of sales. The Sharjah International Book Fair is witnessing a huge response by publishing houses and cultural organizations to register, exceeding the exhibition area, which means we need to increase the area to accommodate the largest number of outstanding participants.” 

He added, “This year we have seen substantial pressure from publishers who want to register for participation in the 34th edition, which will begin on November 4th. We have received applications from many countries from all around the world that were eager to be present at the fair. Therefore, we decided to open registration early for the 35th edition to be held next year, to allow publishers who want to participate to submit their application and reserve the exhibition space before it is sold out.”

Al Ameri said that the Sharjah Book Authority will assign a special working group to follow up the applications submitted for participation as registration will be open two weeks before the launch of the SIBF 2015. The team will be available to answering inquiries about participation in next year's edition, while other work teams are engaged in preparing for this year's edition.

Registration for the 35th edition of SIBF, due to be held in November 2016, will being on Wednesday Oct 21, and continue until August 31, 2016. Registration is available via www.sibf.com. Participation is open to government and semi-government organisations, publishers, distributors, booksellers, e-publishers, and copyright agents, cultural institutions, public libraries, research centres, associations, university libraries and media, in addition to educational material producers, including maps and audio and video recordings, as well as book fairs from all over the world. The availability of space will be subject to registration priority: the fair will stop processing applications once exhibition space is completely booked.