Sponsor Us

Sponsor Us

BABF’s Virtual Programming

A Great Sponsorship Opportunity!

If your business is managing to weather this storm, we’d like to offer a great way to support popular and beloved cultural programming, while getting terrific exposure for your business and brand. The benefits and logistics are a little different than what’s laid out in our Sponsorship Decks at the bottom of this page (which apply to sponsorship of our in-person Fest), but we think you’ll agree that our virtual programming offers special and unique opportunities for promotion and exposure.

Sponsoring our online programs is an excellent way to reach tens of thousands of people—a far bigger group than you’d reach by sponsoring the physical Festival, in fact. Later in April, we’ll be launching online programming that’s highly relevant to our times, on topics ranging from wellness and self-care, to voting rights in the age of social distancing, to parenting during crisis, to diverting and riveting discussions about literature and life with bestselling authors. We’ll also launch extensive children’s and young adult programs online.

Sponsorship is affordable, helps a beloved literary Festival thrive, and gives you excellent, meaningful exposure.
Contact sponsor@baybookfest.org to learn more and explore options for a win-win partnership. Thanks for your interest!

High-Quality, Well-Produced Online Programming

BABF’s virtual programs will be pre-recorded on a solid platform with high production values, directed by an Emmy-winning sound engineer who has been part of the Festival team for years. We’re taking the time and care to create programming that’s not only stimulating and timely, but optimally user-friendly, attractive, and beautifully executed.

Wide, Well-Publicized Exposure for Your Brand

BABF’s virtual programs will be distributed not only to the Bay Area Book Festival’s social media and our highly engaged, 13,000 subscribers, but offered via a network of a dozen other book festivals around the country that have expressed a desire to share our programs with their lists and social media. Further, we expect to reach thousands of viewers via media coverage of our virtual programming, with interest already expressed by media outlets such as The San Francisco Chronicle. Your brand, and support for the program, would reach and resonate with potentially tens of thousands.

A Gift to Your Community

In these difficult times, your community would appreciate you for helping to bring free virtual programming to life that sustains, inspires, and informs. Association with top authors and meaningful, substantive dialogue is a terrific opportunity to showcase your business’ values, and your commitment to community, culture, and family at a time when these things are more precious than ever.

Sponsor the in-person Festival When we Return in 2021!

The Bay Area Book Festival is an in-person weekend experience in which tens of thousands of highly educated people — millennials, baby boomers and more — come to connect with hundreds of top authors and selected consumer brands. We offer a variety of creative, affordable sponsorship opportunities to reach your target market, and showcase your products and services. Nearly 60% of our attendees have reported that in addition to seeing authors, they came to shop. Join us!

2020 Sponsorship Packet

Tap the Festival to Build Customers and Brand

Author Events

People are passionate about connecting around books, and authors are a special kind of celebrity. We bring in New York Times best selling authors, winners of the major prizes (such as the Pulitzer, Booker, and National Book Award), syndicated columnists, celebrities and politicians, mystery and crime writers, science fiction masters, business leaders, and Young Adult and children’s book legends.

Past authors include Robert Reich, Alice Waters, Judy Blume, Michael Chabon, Cory Doctorow, Masha Gessen, Barry Lopez, Rebecca Solnit, Roxane Gay, Tayari Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Kwame Anthony Appiah, R.O. Kwon, Adam Hochschild, Greil Marcus, Esi Edugyen, Tommy Pico, Tommy Orange, Carmen Maria Machado, Alicia Garza, Pico Iyer, Walter Mosley, Scott Turow, and many, many more — 1,250 speakers over the five years so far!

Outdoor Fair

Meet thousands of consumers at our lively, high-quality outdoor fair with a 600-seat outdoor stage and tent; hundreds of booths featuring sponsors, literary exhibitors, and food trucks; and a Children’s Stage (available to be sponsored!) and busy children’s area with interactive play. The fair covers a 10-block radius around Downtown Berkeley BART and Civic Center Park.

Festival Gala

The dazzling, elegant, invitation-only Festival Author Reception and Gala is a remarkable opportunity to hobnob with 600 extraordinary guests: the festival’s authors, government officials, cultural and business leaders, philanthropists, and fellow sponsors. The Gala will be a highlight of your year. And it’s a fabulous perk to offer your best clients!

We don’t have tables like some events do. We think you’d prefer to be able to mingle with everyone. All Gala sponsors have their logos on the invitation, collateral at the event if desired, and logo on signage. You’re thanked and introduced from the podium during a welcome.

New Republic participated in the Bay Area Book Festival with the goals of reaching our loyal readers and introducing the brand to new audiences. BABF allowed us to do that in a meaningful way—and with impact! We appreciate BABF’s sense of collaboration and engagement in the creative process that led to unique and memorable programming that was perfectly aligned with New Republic’s vision. The festival was an important part of our marketing plan and will continue to be into the future.

– New Republic magazine

2019’s Festival by the Numbers

25,000 festivalgoers

200 exhibitors (sponsors, bookstores, publishers, & more)

250 top authors from across the globe & many genres

100 author events (keynotes, interviews, & panels)

Food Court, Family Zone, Fun for All

For more details, please download our 2020 Sponsorship Packet, and contact sponsor@baybookfest.org.