It is said that you only appreciate things when they are out of reach or completely gone.
With a view to the Leipzig Trade Fair, that is not true.
On the one hand, at the moment of the third cancellation within three years, we could have already gotten used to her absence, despite the renewed hopes every spring, but on the other hand, we already knew before 2020 what we had in her.
When she changes, it's usually for the better.
It started with accessibility (fast S-Bahn instead of a leisurely crawling tram) and didn't end with the splendidly developing "Leipzig Reads" reading festival.
The fact that it had to be canceled again, even though there were solid plans to carry it out under Omicron conditions, was caused by the withdrawal of many publishers, which other publishers do not want to accept.
A group of organizers around the two publishers Leif Greinus and Gunnar Cynybulk have now announced that they want to hold a book show in Leipzig with around fifty exhibitors, which they call "buchmesse_popup".
Only those who want to go to the fair are allowed to come
The location is the approximately 900 square meter site of the "Werk 2" culture factory in Leipzig-Connewitz, the date is roughly the date on which the fair should have taken place, i.e. March 18th to 20th, and should take part according to information the organizer publishers such as Aufbau, CH Beck, Hanser and Suhrkamp, but also Kampa, Klett-Cotta, Matthes & Seitz or Schöffling - the names of the so-called group publishers are missing.
Some resentment was focused on them in reporting after the cancellation of the trade fair, although more level-headed voices such as that of the trade fair director Oliver Zille had warned against one-sided blame – West against East, large against small – and had referred to early cancellations by small East German publishers.
For the Leipzig book show, which is to be accompanied by around sixty half-hour readings, this still has consequences: "Of course we only take publishers who would have come to the fair," says Leif Greinus, "anything else would be absurd." Incidentally the hygiene concept - 2 G plus, two-hour slots for visitors - could still change, depending on the infection process.
All of this sounds encouraging for an industry that, at least in part, does not want to put up with the failure of an important platform and meeting place and instead of "Leipzig reads" at least organizes a kind of "Leipzig light".
And at the same time, the trade fair cannot remotely replace it, which the organizers sympathetically also clearly state.
So there will be good reasons to visit the Fifties from Connewitz at their stands as well as the events that are left over from the "Leipzig Reads" program.
And even better, hoping for a coming year when we finally go back to the fair.
Because we miss her.