The editorial direction changes, spaces increase. But the script has been the same for a few years now. The Book Fair, the flagship of Turin’s events, remains in the midst of an almost interminable tug-of-war between the French conglomerate Gl Events (owner of Lingotto Fiere) and the institutions, namely the Municipality and the Region.
At the center of this tête-à-tête is the Turin, city of books association, which manages and organizes the Salon, this year led by the journalist and writer Annalena Benini. The fair, which reached 222 thousand spectators (beating the 215 thousand in 2023), seems to have a natural need for expansion, but the rental contract expired with the first edition directed by the signature of the Sheet.
Gl Events has repeatedly issued ultimatums to the institutions, asking them to invest in the relaunch of the exhibition center. The company directed by CEO Gabor Ganczer had declared a THR Rome that the dialogue with the institutions was “not very constant”, underlining a Republic that we are “considering all scenarios”.
Meanwhile, the French conglomerate, which manages the Oval (owned by the city and built for the 2006 Winter Olympics), announced in February that it was investing 12 million euros over three years to renovate the structure, and to make it flexible for use also as a cinema soundstage. A hybrid structure, the Lingotto Studios, to which Gl Events is no stranger, as it also owns the Hungexpo in Budapest, the exhibition center where the filming of Dunes.
Turin Book Fair
The negotiation for the Book Fair
“The issue is linked to spaces,” explains a The Hollywood Reporter Rome Silvio Viale, president of Turin, the city of books, underlining that “by bringing all these people there is a dimension of the event that needs services in general”.
“Services and dynamics that, at the moment, are not there, since the location is not as preserved as it was a few years ago, and there are no investments trying to improve it. And we are the ones who have to make up for it by building a temporary pavilion”, adds Viale, who also admits that there is a big problem for renting the spaces: a figure that exceeds 650 thousand euros.
However, the president of Turin, the city of books, wants to be clear about one thing: “The home of the Salone is the Lingotto. There is no place in Turin like this where we can host the Salon”. “We will hold the 2025 edition, we are in negotiations and we are building a multi-year agreement, as we always do. Unfortunately we haven’t closed it yet, but we hope to finish it in the next month.”
Reached by The Hollywood Reporter Rome, Gl Events has confirmed the ongoing negotiations with Turin, the city of books. “We all hope that the Book Fair will continue and we first hope that Lingotto Fiere can continue to be its home”.
And the city?
The position of Turin, the city of books, in the negotiation with Gl Events is obviously “weak”. “We can’t host the Show except here, they practically have a monopoly on this.” “Then it must be considered that in other cities there is a significant investment in the world of trade fairs. It is an asset in which it makes sense to invest as a territory, and it is important that the territory itself takes care of it.”
While the governor of the Piedmont Region Alberto Cirio said he was ready to “buy the walls” of the Lingotto Fiere, the mayor of Turin Stefano Lo Russo instead stated that the city “does not have in its plans the purchase of the property owned by Gl Events”. “We certainly want to build with other institutions everything we can reasonably do in terms of initiatives to strengthen the trade fair and conference sector,” adds the mayor.
“For a supply chain as important as the trade fair one, public and private should be a team, capable of sharing a strategic and operational vision and able to participate in investments”, he comments to THR Rome the French conglomerate. And he concludes: “We believe that our structure represents a “common good” for the community, in this sense we hope for the collaboration of local institutions and we are open to possible solutions.”
