Lifeline Canberra’s first Bookfair of 2024, held at EPIC last weekend, was the biggest and most successful in their history, CEO Carrie-Ann Leeson said.
It broke records for funds raised (the amount has not been disclosed); the number of pallets sold; the number of visitors; and the number of volunteers.
The Bookfair is Lifeline’s main fundraiser, and every cent raised funds the 24/7 suicide prevention and crisis support hotline (13 11 14), demand for which has increased by 40 per cent since the pandemic. Last year, 32,000 Canberrans called the crisis hotline.
Fortunately, over the past six years, the Bookfair has doubled both in size (it has taken over another pavilion at EPIC), and in terms of people supporting it, Ms Leeson said.
“Because of the support over the weekend, we’re able to [grow] the crisis support front, and cater more adequately to demand.”
More than 25,000 people attended the Bookfair – the highest ever number.
“We had a queue of 2,000 people before we opened the door,” Ms Leeson said. “It took over an hour for everyone to patiently make their way in, but everyone again was beaming at the fact that it had arrived… The overall atmosphere was fuelled by kindness, joy, and excitement.”
For the first time since the pandemic, too, there was no sign the community was anxious about coming to a crowded event.
“When you’ve got everything running in such an orderly manner, and you’ve got well informed and passionate volunteers on the floor, people are going to have a great experience,” Ms Leeson said.
She likens the Bookfair to a “Disneyworld for books” – laid out in different ‘lands’ or themes or genres.
Expecting this year’s Bookfair to be big, there was a 20 pallet increase in the stock: records, talking books, games, puzzles, and music. By close of business on the opening day, Friday, what Lifeline planned to sell over the course of the weekend was largely already gone, purchased. Altogether, over the weekend, more than 205 pallets were sold, each worth thousands of dollars; previous years sell 190 to 197 pallets on average.
“That is no small feat,” Ms Leeson said. “Even though we get many generous donations, we have the bookstore [at Fyshwick Markets], which is open every week, and the bookfairs throughout the year. So to stock them with high quality books has become more of a challenge for us.”
Some of the books were “incredibly rare”, Ms Leeson said, including 17th-century publications, long out-of-print works, and coffee table books.
The high-value books are first offered to supporters at the Bookfair; if they find no buyers, they are sold online via Lifeline’s eBay store. Books listed at the moment include first editions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894), the second volume of the great sleuth’s exploits, ending with his tumble off Reichenbach and presumed death; of Anthony Berkeley’s ingenious detective story Not to Be Taken (1938); and of Oscar Wilde’s decadent 1893 play Salome (in English translation), with ‘erotic plates’ by Aubrey Beardsley, emaciated women like praying mantises snogging the severed head of John the Baptist. Then, too, there is a beautiful Art Nouveau illustrated edition of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. There are signed works by Australian novelist Miles Franklin, and David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), one of Time’s 100 best English language books of the 20th century.
As a South African, Ms Leeson was taken by a set of vintage postcards from her home country. “They were just exquisite to think about, to be transported back to that time when people communicated with postcards,” she said. “And to think that someone had stored them so carefully and then donated them to the Bookfair.”
Almost 500 volunteers set up the Bookfair – the largest number of volunteers ever.
“Although the warehouse is running 24/7 over the course of the weekend, as well, we’ve got volunteers going in and out all hours – not just to sort the donations that come in from the community, as they recall that they’ve got a box to drop off or a bag to deliver, but also they’re sorting and palletising and grabbing more stocks,” Ms Leeson said.
Lifeline’s volunteers are already preparing for the next two bookfairs, which will be held at the Tuggeranong Southern Cross Stadium in June, and at EPIC once more in September.
“If there’s one thing I can say,” Ms Leeson said, “it’s thank you: to the volunteers; to the stakeholders; to the people that came out, one, two, or three days. This is something that will fuel the passion and the commitment of the team here onto the next one… It’s only through community support that we keep going, and that’s what gets us bouncing out of bed every morning. So from my team and me, a heartfelt thank you.”
In the meantime, Book Lovers Lane is open at the Fyshwick Fresh Food Markets, Thursday to Sunday, 9am to 4pm.
