This year, when the Frankfurt Book Fair announced its mostly digital edition, the Slovenian Book Agency decided not only to digitalize all Slovenian events but to develop an entire virtual book fair stand. The visitors were thus able to pick their own avatars, have a look at our virtual book exhibition and new videos, as well as take a walk around our stand and talk to us in real time. Surely a new and unique experience for many visitors and the first and only virtual stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2020!

In three days between 14^th and 16^th October we welcomed more visitors at the stand than we ever did on our physical stand in Frankfurt. The busiest day was Wednesday with nearly 600 visitors, most of them being German or Slovenian. That was good news for us, because we reached one of our main target audiences (German) as well as motivated our domestic publishers, authors, translators, journalist and other interested audience to take part and use the virtual stand for their own activities, meetings and networking.

During the book fair the visitors were able to attend five events:

• an opening of the stand,
• a hybrid event about the world traveller Alma M. Karlin: Around the World in Eight Years: An Extraordinary World Traveler and Her Typewriter (video is in German language), which took place in Roomers Frankfurt and online in cooperation with AvivA Verlag,
• two short films in the frame of Bookfest digital festival:

                Art in Crisis (11min): a short film featuring Slovenian author and philosopher Alenka Zupančič, author and immunologist Alojz Ihan, author Mojca Kumerdej, author and journalist Mojca Širok and author and translator Jasmin B. Frelih talking about the meaning of art in times of crisis, filmed on the streets of Slovenia's capital Ljubljana right after the spring lockdown.

Ana Roš: The Cook and the Chef (7min): a short film about the globally-acclaimed Slovenian chef Ana Roš of Hiša Franko and her personal monograph Sun and Rain (Phaidon, 2020),

• a rights sales workshop with Stephanie Barrouillet (S. B. Rights Agency)
• a pre-recorded discussion in the frame of Market Insights Series about the Slovenian book market.

Read more about our programme here.

We would like to once again thank all our visitors at the stand and our partners: Frankfurt Book Fair, Slovenian Embassy in Berlin, Slovenian Tourist Board (STO) and AvivA Verlag. We are looking forward to meeting you again – in person and virtually!