Special thanks to the fabulous sponsors of the 2025 Booksellers Conference
Draft programme is subject to change.
Friday 18 July
6pm: Booksellers Salon, Parked Up Beer Garden, Victoria Park, Auckland
Speaker line-up announced in June.
Saturday 19 July
0800: Breakfast and networking
0845: Welcome
0900: Breakfast keynote from acclaimed author Dr Hinemoa Elder. Kindly sponsored by Penguin Random House
0945: Voices of Experience Panel: hear the wisdom from a panel of legendary booksellers, who will share wisdom from over 200 years of bookselling. Panelists tba.
1015: Nielsen BookData: the annual update from Nielsen covering best sellers, trends and market movements in the Aotearoa Book Industry
1045: Morning tea, sponsored by Allen & Unwin Aotearoa NZ
1100: The Economics of Books, Art & Culture: Brad Olsen, Infometrics CEO & Chief Economist
1145: Trans-tasman Bookselling survey results: Robbie Egan, CEO of BookPeople will present the findings from this research
1215: Lunch
1300: Keynote, Michael Bennett: Michael Te Arawa Bennett is a New Zealand writer, scenarist, best-selling and award-winning author and director for film and television. Session sponsored by HarperCollins Arotahi Agency.
1345: Content-based attacks on bookshops: An increasing number of bookshops are facing harassment, threats, vandalism, and other types of attack because of their curation of books and events. This session will address steps you can take to make yourself and your business more resilient and less likely to be targeted. We’ll cover some common themes in these events, resources available to guide your response, some common pitfalls, and ways to proactively defend against them. We’ll be joined by an expert on censorship and book bans, Philomena Polefrone, Associate Director at the American Booksellers Freedom of Expression (ABFE) for this session.
1415: Scholars: hear from Bookseller and EIBF scholars about their international scholarship experiences
1430: Break
1445: Payment technologies & digital tokens: Change is coming in a big way for payment technologies, from next-gen barcodes to digital currencies and wallets. What does this mean for your business, your counter top and your customers, and how does this affect Booksellers vouchers? Guest speaker, Open Payments.
1515: Best Bookseller Idea
1530: Community Forum
1600: End