Firsts Online Rare Book Fair to Run November 27 to December 2
London -- Following the success of the June and September editions of Firsts Online, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABA) has announced the third staging of its online fair series, scheduled to run Friday 27th November to Wednesday 2nd December on a new dedicated website www.firsts-online.com.
Due to the cancellation of the Chelsea and Edinburgh Rare Book Fairs due to take place this autumn, the winter-staging of Firsts Online will provide an opportunity to highlight ABA booksellers who would historically exhibit at these events. The November edition of Firsts Online will welcome booksellers from the ABA and the International League of Booksellers (ILAB), with each exhibitor showcasing up to 20 rare books respectively. Visitors to the online fair will be able to search books by title, author, keywords or categories and equally visit each bookseller’s virtual booth to view their highlights. Visitors can expect to see a variety of items including rare manuscripts, prints and illustrations, modern literature, and first or early editions.
Responding to the need for a digital fair platform, the ABA alongside their Official Fair Partner Biblio have launched a separate website exclusively for the online fairs, www.firsts-online.com. The forthcoming November fair will be hosted on the new site, and has been developed with user experience in mind and improved based on exhibitor feedback.
The June and September editions of Firsts Online each brought together an impressive average of 120 dealers from over 15 countries, representing an excellent diversity of specialisms and driving several large five and six figure sales across the two fairs. Visitors to the website peaked on both opening days, with over 65,000 pageviews on the first day and totalling approximately 140,000 over the five-day periods.
