Abstract

Many kinds of Book Fairs exist in Italy and in the world: professional for rights sales (Frankfurt Buchmesse, Bologna Children’s Book Fair), and aimed to the big public (Festival du Livre in Paris, Salone del libro in Torino, Più Libri Più Liberi in Roma). Recently, hybrids of the two types have been developed. Both centered on the book industry and its public, they have been supplemented in the last decades by Festivals, manly resulting from local authorities initiatives or linked to a city or a territory. In this paper the relations are considered between these initiatives, their success in terms of public gathered and book buyers, on one side, and of the reading increase, the conquest of new readers on the other. Projects of audience engagement are also considered, as well as services for the editorial staff (learning and training initiatives) are realised by the industry inside the fair aimed to the big public.