I've been to book fairs before, but I had never
heard of a book fair being such a huge affair
like the event you've described.

When I was in elementary school, first through
fourth grade, I attended public school in South
and then North Carolina. We used to have
book fairs twice a year there, if I remember
correctly. Of course it was all children's
literature geared toward that age group. I got
most of my collection of Choose Your Own
Adventure books at those book fairs.

More recently, my last employer hosted a very
small book fair twice a year. I was only there
for a little over a year, so was able to attend
two of them. They were set up in one half of a
conference room, so as you can imagine they
didn't have anywhere close to the amount of
books available that you had at the Concord
fair. They did have a wide variety though, and
the prices seemed to be a good discount. I
bought books both times...some children's
books for my son, and some Uncle John's
Bathroom Readers (anthologies of trivial
knowledge) for myself. I got those Bathroom
Readers for about half the price of what I've
seen them for at Barnes & Nobles.

Grishny