Vendors and organizers are calling the inaugural Edition Toronto international art book fair a great success, with 50 per cent more attendees than expected. The four-day event was designed to complement the 17-year-old Art Toronto fair, held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from Oct. 28 to 31. Approximately 8,000 visitors attended Edition Toronto – which was was presented by Division art gallery and Toronto-based artist book publisher the Magenta Foundation – far surpassing its goal of 5‚000, a quarter of Art Toronto’s attendance in 2016.

“It was a steady flow of people through the space, and it felt evenly distributed over the weekend. We’re very‚ very pleased with how it went‚” Edition Toronto director Bill Clarke says. “A lot of the feedback we got was that it infused a new energy to Art Toronto‚ a youthful edge because of the vendors and the price point.”

The event was first conceived of last fall as a way to support and grow the arts publishing community. Curators and other stakeholders suggested Art Toronto would provide the ideal audience‚ and the larger fair eagerly took Edition on.

Edition’s programming‚ directed by art-book promotion and distribution organization Art Metropole‚ included a talk by London artist and writer Hannah Black‚ a public show-and-tell by a club of Toronto art-book collectors‚ and panels and discussions with experts ranging from Koyama Press publisher Annie Koyama to artists from Canada and abroad‚ including Rutherford Chang‚ Joshua Vittivelu‚ and Anna Szaflarski. Representatives from the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa were also in attendance as visitors.

Clarke says he plans for the fair looks to return annually at Art Toronto‚ maintaining its specific focus on books. “We don’t want it to feel like a zine fair because there are events already happen that completely take care of that market and are great. We want it to feel like it’s about books‚” Clarke says. “Hopefully we can expand it even more next year.”