Rio Book Biennial ends with more than 2 million works sold
The 20th Bienal do Livro Rio sold more than 2 million works over ten days. The event ended this Sunday (12), at the Riocentro pavilion, in Barra da Tijuca, west of the city. More than one million people of all ages participated in the activities and debates organized by collective curation, in person and virtually at the largest cultural festival in the country.
In the assessment of Marcos da Veiga Pereira, president of the National Union of Book Publishers (Snel), “the sales of the 2021 Bienal were very surprising. We were impressed by the appetite of the visitors. The general feeling was one of safety and comfort, with wider streets, well-organized queues and limited public. The cultural program was another success, with sessions filled in person and with a good online audience”, he highlighted.
The Bienal do Livro Rio had, for the first time, a hybrid format. The debate tables at Estação Plural were also broadcast in real time via the digital platform, with 750 thousand accesses. According to the balance presented just now by the organization, 34.5% of the public present at Riocentro attended the event for the first time and 50.8% were between 18 and 25 years old. Of the 250,000 people who visited the three pavilions in Barra da Tijuca, 99% bought at least one book. The average was six books purchased per visitor.
Biennial attractions
A survey carried out by the Bienal do Livro organization identified that the variety of titles and the good prices found were some of the attractions mentioned by the public. The director of GV events, responsible for holding the literary festival, Tatiana Zaccaro, believes that the bet to make the event was correct. “Being the first major event was a huge responsibility and we are very happy with the result. We were able to prove that it is possible to make a great event with safety and quality. We saw happiness in every look and in the affectionate contact with books and authors. The Bienal is a moment of unparalleled reading experience and the public was eager for it”, said Tatiana.
The 20th edition of the Bienal do Livro Rio received more than 180 guests, including renowned national and international names. Among them, highlights include Lázaro Ramos, Conceição Evaristo, Fabio Porchat, Thalita Rebouças, Ailton Krenak, Julia Quinn, Matt Ruff, Casey McQuinston, Miriam Leitão, Itamar Vieira Junior, Junji Ito, Mariana Enriquez, Gabriela Prioli, Muniz Sodré, Priscilla Alcantara , Bráulio Bessa and many others, who were present at the debate tables at the Plural Station. The Metamorphoses Space, sponsored by Petrobras Cultural, attracted thousands of children, teenagers and adults who were enchanted by the immersive, interactive, playful and 'hi-tech' environment, which invited them to reflect on the changes in the world.
Among the most popular tables of the edition, within the provocation about which stories we want to tell from now on, one of the most celebrated was “Lulu Traço & Verso: 40 years of career”, in which singer Lulu Santos launched a 'songbook' with his songs illustrated by Daniel Kondo, to commemorate the four decades of his career, and he also created a karaoke that livened up the night of the 4th. ' and running out of all autograph bracelets; and “Fiction and Reality in Crime”, with a debate around the narratives of “true crime” (real crime) with Raphael Montes, Ivan Mizanzuki.
Safety
At the vaccination post set up at the Bienal in partnership with the Municipal Health Department, more than 300 people who had not yet taken the second dose were vaccinated, so they could visit the festival. Every day, around 50 people, on average, returned home for not having presented proof of vaccination, which was a requirement of the event.
Exhibitors
More than 85 publishers participated in the event in 2021 and were surprised by the result. The increase in sales to exhibitors varied between 20% and 120% compared to 2019. Editora Vozes had a 30% increase in sales compared to the previous edition. The Grupo Editorial Record stand reached the last weekend with a 90% growth in registered sales. This was the best biennial in the group's history in terms of sales, surpassing the 2015 edition, which was attended by international best-seller authors.
At Globo Livros there was a 20% growth in the first weekend of the event compared to the previous Bienal. On Friday, until last Friday (10), the increase had been 30% compared to the 2019 event; and in Intrinsic, 15%.
new readers
Aiming to encourage the habit of reading, the 20th Edition of the Bienal do Livro do Rio received almost 70 thousand students from the municipal and state public schools. All students from the Municipal Network who visited the Bienal received a R$20 card to buy books. The Network's 47,591 servers were also presented with a card for book purchases in the amount of R$200, purchased at the event or at the online store.
Cards were also made available to 1,561 administrative units (schools, day care centers and extension centers) for the purchase of books for the respective collections, with values ranging from R$1 thousand to R$1.6 thousand. In all, more than R$ 12 million were allocated to this action by the Municipal Education Department.
The State Department of Education (Seeduc-RJ) took around 20 thousand students from the state network and 5 thousand teachers from 631 schools to the festival. The partnership aimed to expand the initiatives to support and encourage reading. Schools received a kit with the Bienal Card, used to purchase books. Teachers were awarded R$160 and students earned R$80 to purchase books, magazines and comics (comics).
Curator of the children's space and member of the Biennial Committee of the Book Rio do SNEL, Marta Ribas, celebrated the outcome of the event. “The connection with the educators was wonderful, with a lot of exchange and learning. We help with the curation of which titles they could take according to the profile of each unit”, he informed.
Text translated using artificial intelligence.
