The "veritable flea market of idea" took like a fish to the water in its new location in Dalmeny Street. Although the Drill Hall seemed occasionally a bit cold, it certainly had enough space to appear airy and spacious enough despite quite a lot of people visiting the bookfair.
There wasn't any apparant change to the publishers involved in the bookfair, but for the first time none of the stalls was staffed.

The talks and events on offer were plenty and made it impossible to follow all of them.

Personal highlights were so far Michael Alberts talk on participatory economy, entitled: "Life beyond Capitalism", Achin Vanaik and Craig Murray's talk on "Political Terrorism and the US Imperial Project" and George Monbiot's presentation on how to stop climate change.
Two activists from Venezuela also talked about Latin America, accompanied by Jacopo Moroni, editor of Naked Punch Review.

Some selected audio recordings of speeches will hopefully be soonish available and published,too.

The new location only added to the nature of the bookfair, although it is located a bit further out of the town centre now.
The brand-new toilets are a pleasure to use, though a bit more space in the cubicles would have been appreciated. But the taps, well, I have waited the last seven years to see the mixed-water tap introduced in Britain, and am certainly grateful to have paper towels to use. The toilets look very stylish, too.
The location has also the advantage of a little kitchen with a cooker and two fridges, making it for the first time easily possible to provide a variety of warm and cold food to the audience. The electronic audio-visual systems also facilitate the discussions of the authors to a further outside audience in the cafe, which was well appreciated by families of squeeking babies and jumpy toddlers.

Related

*  http://www.word-power.co.uk/book_fair/