London Book Fair 2024 Returns with AI, Rights & Audio Focus

The London Book Fair 2024 returns with AI, rights, and audio in focus, plus new initiatives, key panels, and prestigious industry awards.

on Mar 04, 2025

The London Book Fair (LBF) will take place this year on 11-13 March at Olympia London. Publishers Weekly (PW) says the fair anticipates welcoming over 30,000 visitors and 845 exhibitors – figures not experienced prior to the pandemic, says Adam Ridgway, who assumed the role of LBF director in April 2024.

Arising in the wake of the British government's copyright-and-AI consultation period, which ran until late February, the fair will feature ongoing discussions on AI and the business. On the convention floor, panelists are president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers Maria Pallante and CEO of the UK Publishers Association Dan Conway, both of whom are 'in discussions with their own governments on AI regulation', PW reports. Also on AI, Storytel's chief content officer Helena Gustafsson (who recently published a book composed by an AI 'author') will 'host a fireside chat' with Hachette Audio president and publisher Ana Maria Allessi regarding AI and audiobooks, PW stated.

New initiatives at LBF are the widening of the international rights centre, 'audio alley' growing to 'audio village', and a new programming block to counter the issue of dwindling young reader numbers – such as the main stage session Cultivating the Next Generation of Readers. Running concurrently with the fair this year is a three-day academic and professional publishing conference, which will ‘address various sustainability challenges, business model evolution, and the impact of AI on the sector’, reported PW. In one final innovation, LBF has named comics artist and British Book Awards winner Jamie Smart the inaugural Creative of the Fair.

Awards handed out throughout the duration of LBF are the Trailblazers Awards, the Selfies Book Awards, and the fair's yearly Lifetime Achievement Award, which was presented this year to associate director for export services at the Publishers Association, Gloria Bailey.