Maybe the Mayans had it right all along. There were a few things you could have thought of to disrupt this year's London Book Fair. Chief among the possibilities might have been dreadful weather conditions or perhaps wholescale transport strikes in the UK. A massive plume of volcanic ash 10 kilometers up in the sky over Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Scandinavia and may parts of Northern Europe has brought almost complete shutdown of all flight travel in and out of the UK.
Officially, the London Book Fair starts this Monday through to Wednesday, but there is an early digital conference on Sunday, and it is this event which may be worst hit by the air travel suspensions with a host of visitors coming from outside of Europe to various events at the Fair. UK airports look likely to remain closed to flights until at least early Saturday morning, and even with an all-clear, it could be many days before flights in and out of the UK return to normal.Hopefully the ash clouds of panic will blow over and this year's Fair will prove a huge success. You can get full details of the events next week at the official website and we will of course be keeping abreast of things with regular reports throughout the week.
A listing of seminars is available directly here.
...from this morning's thebookseller.com:
'Show Must Go On'
...from this morning's thebookseller.com:
'Show Must Go On'
...and the Director of the London Book Fair posted an open letter online this morning for attendees:
"The London Book Fair Team is working hard to minimise the disruption to the fair caused by the volcanic ash temporarily closing airports in the UK and Europe. Our customer service team are calling international exhibitors to offer assistance with manning stands and arranging alternative travel plans where possible. Our view is that the show must – and will – go on and we will provide all the help we can to ensure it runs as smoothly as possible.
We know that many international exhibitors and visitors have already arrived and those travelling from Europe are finding alternative transport. Our substantial UK attendees remain unaffected. Our website is being updated regularly with practical information and helplines. I want to thank everyone for their calls of support and determination to get to the fair and to reiterate that we will be in continual communication over the coming days.
Sincerely, Alistair Burtenshaw"
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