Book fair organisers expect record visitors
In keeping with the general trend over the years, the 24th Muscat International Book Fair is expected to get more visitors this year than ever before
Times News Service
MUSCAT: The organisers of the Muscat International Book Fair 2019 believe that this year’s edition will see more visitors than the previous editions, based on the trends.
When asked about the numbers this year compared to the previous editions of the fair, an organiser said to Times of Oman, “Thank god, the numbers are steadily increasing.”
An organiser added to Times of Oman, “On the first day, we saw 73,547 visitors.” Many of the people at the fair had carried empty luggage bags to make space for books, and one young visitor said to Times of Oman, “I didn’t need to be here, but I wanted to because I wanted to find new books to read.”
This is the 24th edition of the fair, which began on February 21 and will continue until March 2.
In 1992, the first edition of the fair saw “200,00 visitors”, according to the fair’s website. By the year 2000, that number had more than doubled to 444,000 thousand, and it doubled again in 2017, when the event saw 826,000 visitors.
The fair’s website stated that this year there are“523,000 books, of which 35 per cent are new”, which might account for its wide popularity.
A visitor to the event said to Times of Oman, “I have a specific list of books that I want to find.”
Another visitor wanted to know more about an author. “I can find the book, but people don’t know much about the author of this book,” he said. “I don’t even know if he’s a real person or a group of people, so I wanted to ask the workers at this stand since they come from the same country.”
During a press conference for the launch of the fair, Dr. Abdul Monim bin Mansour Al Hassani, Minister of Information, said, “This edition features 882 publishers from 30 countries, and for the first time, will see contributions from China, Bulgaria, Canada, and Sri Lanka.”
The book fair even drew in acclaim from Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Columnist for the New York Times.
The author said during an interview with Oman TV, “I go to a lot of book festivals. I get invited to book festivals all the time. If there’s a better one than yours in terms of attracting visitors, [I haven’t seen it]. You have four million people in this country, and one out of three go to the book festival, it’s unbelievable! That doesn’t happen anywhere.”
The Muscat Book fair also features various cultural events.
As part of the fair, the National Youth Commission organised a reading challenge with “24 teams from all governorates in the Sultanate, which aimed to plant the seed of a love for reading in students and to enrich their life with information”, according to a statement by the event’s organisers. Furthermore, the UNICEF took part in the fair with its own corner for the first time. The corner included “handing out brochures and informing people about the UNICEF’s role in supporting children”.
Finally, the Omani Pharmacist Society held an event with a play, which aimed to “educate about the proper usage of medicines and the dangers of using pills when there is no need for them”.