About Festival du Livre de Paris
The Festival du Livre de Paris is France's major annual book festival and the successor to the Salon du Livre de Paris. The original salon was created in 1981 by the Syndicat national de l'édition (SNE), the French publishers' association, and first held at the Grand Palais before moving to Porte de Versailles for many years. In 2022 it was relaunched under its current name at the temporary Grand Palais Éphémère, and in 2025 it returned to the restored Grand Palais.
Publishing houses of every size exhibit, from major groups to independent presses, with lists covering fiction, graphic novels, children's books, crime, fantasy, romance and non-fiction. The festival is primarily aimed at the reading public, so visitors include families, students, dedicated readers and fans keen to meet their favourite authors. Dedicated professional meetings and a schools programme also bring in booksellers, librarians, teachers and others from the book trade.
Few events give publishers such direct contact with readers in one of Europe's largest book markets. Author encounters, signings, debates and exhibitions across many stages create steady reasons to visit stands, and the festival attracts wide media coverage. Publishers use it to promote new titles, build loyalty and see how readers respond to their lists.
Consumer book festivals reward stands that are easy to browse and can cope with crowds, with accessible shelving, a clear till point and signing areas where queues do not block displays. Stand Between can introduce exhibitors to builders familiar with historic venues.
Next edition
Festival du Livre de Paris 2027: what to expect
The 2027 festival takes place from 16 to 18 April 2027 at the Grand Palais in Paris.
For scale, the 2026 festival welcomed 121,000 visitors and featured around 1,800 authors, more than 300 talks and encounters and 3,000 signing sessions across 12 stages, with two art exhibitions.
The Grand Palais is a historic, recently restored building, so check rules on build height, fixings, floor protection and delivery access early, and expect tighter constraints than in a modern exhibition hall. Signing sessions with popular authors can generate long queues, so plan queue space with the organiser.