In one of the business corridors of Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2024. Image: BCBF
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Meetings With Stakeholders, Strategic Partners’
Each year, Elena Pasoli‘s Bologna Children’s Book Fair (April 13 to 16) precedes its trade show in the Emilia-Romagna with a tour, often exhibiting children’s-book illustration from its many competitions.
This year, Bologna’s 63rd, the tour is scheduled to start with an appearance at Cologne’s GamesCom, August 20 to 24. (It is GamesCom, not GamesCon.)
This may surprise some. But by its changes in its own structure and offerings—with new points of emphasis such as gaming getting larger and more layered—Bologna is proposing an industry evolution in which the idea of content development holds a much larger role in the industry’s understanding of itself and its potential than may have been the case in the past.
For many years, book-to-screen, licensing, dedicated rights-selling arenas, and other initiatives have been rolled out at Bologna. At times, it may have been easier to draw players from those “nearby industries” than from the books world, itself. But Pasoli and her team have persevered. And now they’re bringing this content-development dynamic to the roadshow that precedes the fair itself.
As our readership knows, the Bologna trade show is the world’s largest and most influential event of its kind focused on books for younger readers.
In recent years, it has undergone a kind of unfolding of new dimensions, first adding Jacks Thomas‘ Bologna Book Plus, a parallel program that’s focused on the general industry, not the children’s sector.
Another dimension added is Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids, and it’s under that wing that content-development now tends to be anchored, with various emphases not only on merchandise but also on books-to-screen; audiovisual advances; and gaming, for which the August stop in Cologne is emblematic.
‘International Content-Development Events’
The first iteration of the Games Business Center at Bologna Children’s Book Fair, introduced in the 2024 show. Image: BCBF
A kind of mission statement is being released today (July 31), in which the Pasoli team that guides the Bologna’s agile development writes to members of the news media:
Elena Pasoli
“The 2026 edition will be shaped by a strong commitment to innovation and expansion into new segments of the creative industries, with the goal of strengthening and completing its book-to-screen offering.
“In pursuit of this goal, the fair is set to launch a program of appearances at key international content-development events—opportunities to promote its offerings and to expand and solidify its international network through meetings with stakeholders, strategic partners, and key industry players.”
In other words, this third-wing, beyond-books focus is to continue. And the tour prior to the main event in Bologna in April is going to stress just such events.
As an example, GamesCom is described by the team as “a key meeting point for developers, publishers, distributors, and professionals from around the world. GamesCom serves as a strategic hub for the entire gaming ecosystem.”
The preparation for this gaming element was made last year at Bologna, when the 2024 fair introduced a Games Business Center in cooperation with Frankfurter Buchmesse. As we’ve noted this summer, Frankfurt itself is in an expansionist mode regarding its own book-to-screen programming and components, in addition to having worked with Bologna for the 2024 concept of their shared Gaming Business Center.
At Cologne, Bologna Children’s Book Fair plans to present “initiatives focused on audiovisual content and cross-media storytelling, essentially based in the Games Business Center. And the goal is to “highlight the development and business opportunities the gaming industry offers to the publishing and licensing world.”
Eight months before it opens in Italy, Bologna Children’s Book Fair is heading out onto the road.
Rights and licensing trading meetings at Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2024. Image: BCBF
More on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here. More from Publishing Perspectives on licensing is here, more on children’s books is here, more on the Italian market is here, and more on world publishing’s trade shows and book fairs is here.
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