I didn’t make it to the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025. A fever, a cough, and a doctor’s raised eyebrow turned my carefully plotted train tickets into digital ghosts. So I watched from bed, propped up on pillows, half tea and half tissues, with livestreams and group chats as my window onto the halls. This blog has always been part bookish scrapbook, part security notebook, and part personal log; missing the fair stitched all three threads together in ways I didn’t expect—less FOMO than a study in distance, safety, and how we choose to participate.
Watching Buchmesse 2025 from Bed: First Impressions
From the first shaky phone video that hit our group chat, I could tell the fair was loud this year—visually, aurally, commercially. Even through a screen, the color-blocked stands and overhead banners felt like a neon forest. Livestreams gave me a geography lesson I don’t usually get on-site; panning shots lingered on signage, booth layouts, and the slow choreography of people moving like currents. It was oddly soothing to pause, rewind, and map it all without sore feet.
The remote vantage made the programming feel more intentional. Instead of sprinting between halls, I curated my own “mini-messe” timeline: an indie translation panel at breakfast, a debut author Q&A by lunch, and a late-night replay of a rights discussion while the humidifier hummed. The lack of hallway serendipity was real, but so was the clarity; I actually heard full sentences from panelists instead of catching fragments over crowd noise.
Bedside Buchmesse also sharpened the small-press signal. On-site, big booths are gravitational wells. Online, the algorithm can be agnostic, and smaller imprints bubbled up through reader videos, translators’ threads, and booksellers’ reels. I bookmarked zines, chapbooks, and a micro-press novella I might have missed in person—then ordered directly, a quiet vote with my wallet that still felt like applause.
Emotionally, the experience was a kaleidoscope: relief at not being jostled, ache at missing impromptu coffees, gratitude for the kindness of friends who narrated their day for me. I missed the sensory texture—the papery tang in the air, the clack of lanyards, the thrum right before a signing starts. But I gained something too: a reminder that the fair isn’t only a place; it’s a network of people, conversations, and care that can stretch all the way to a feverish reader under a blanket.
Crowds, hype, and FOMO: what friends reported back
Reports from the floor were unanimous on one point: there were a lot of people. “Human tide” was the phrase that came up most, along with photos of queues that curled like question marks around halls and signings that turned into impromptu fire drills of patience. Some loved the energy; others texted me in all caps about bottlenecks, closed escalators, and the tactical art of breaching a coffee line without losing your spot in the next queue.
Hype swelled and popped all weekend. Big releases towered—literal arches, colossal screens, choreographed reveals—while the influencer economy buzzed at a frequency you could almost hear through the phone. Friends clocked surprise drops, limited galleys, and glittering meet-and-greets that made the halls feel like a cross between a premiere and a homecoming. It sounded thrilling and a little exhausting, the kind of excitement that leaves a hangover.
With hype came FOMO, and I felt it like a weather system rolling in. Voice notes from the floor had that breathless edge I know well: “You would love this panel. You would hate this line.” They sent me booth selfies and aisle panoramas; I sent back screenshots of the same panel from the livestream and timestamps for the good questions. It turned into a small experiment in being present for each other without being in the same place.
There were bright spots you can only get in person. Two friends met a translator they’d admired for years at a coat rack and ended up splitting a pretzel while trading reading lists. Another stumbled into a debut author’s tiny reading and left smitten. But the less glamorous parts hummed underneath: aching feet, sticker shock at snacks, a panel canceled last-minute, and a communal sigh about air quality. The fair contained multitudes—joy and friction in equal measure.
Health, safety, and why staying home felt right
Missing the fair because I was sick felt, at first, like a personal failure. Then I remembered why we talk about “con crud” at all: thousands of people sharing air and surfaces is a recipe even the healthiest immune system respects. Staying home was partly self-preservation, partly consideration. I didn’t want to be the person who turned a signing line into a petri dish. And the remote ecosystem has matured enough that staying connected didn’t feel like opting out; it felt like choosing a different mode.
There’s also the mental bandwidth piece. Big crowds can skew from energizing to overwhelming fast, especially when you’re not at 100 percent. Friends mentioned the crush in narrow corridors and the way noise swells into a constant pressure. Opting for distance this year was a way to honor my limits, but also to make room—literally—for others who had the capacity and wanted to be there. Accessibility isn’t just ramps and captions; it’s social space, pacing, and permission to choose what your body can carry.
Because this blog lives at the intersection of books and security, I’ll add: fairs are wonderful and they are target-rich environments for casual risks. Friends reported open public Wi‑Fi with familiar-but-not-quite SSIDs, QR codes taped over official signage, and the usual pickpocket ballet near escalators. My perennial, non-alarmist checklist still applies—use a hotspot if you can, disable auto-join, mind your bag and badge, think before you scan, and don’t plug into unknown chargers. Watching from home kept my data and my pockets uninteresting, which is its own quiet win.
I’m aiming for Buchmesse next year with a plan that looks a lot like care: book fewer panels, build in breathing breaks, mask when it’s dense, hydrate like it’s a sport, and keep the digital hygiene tight. In the meantime, I’m supporting small presses with direct orders, asking my library to carry translations I spotted online, and saying yes to virtual events that extend the fair’s conversations. Distance isn’t indifference. Sometimes it’s an act of respect—for your health, for others’ safety, and for the stories you want to arrive at with enough energy to hear.
I missed the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025, but I didn’t miss out. From a safe distance, I found a slower way to listen, a clearer view of what matters to me as a reader and as someone who thinks about safety as part of community care. The fair is a landmark on the calendar, but so is learning to choose wisely when to show up and when to sit one out. I’ll bring that lesson—and a fresh box of tea—into next year’s halls.