Big Bad Wolf Book Fair Jakarta 2019


Hi, guys!
For those of you who don't live in Indonesia this might not interest you but if you happen to be going to Big Bad Wolf Book Fair in the near future, then do read along! 
Big Bad Wolf Book Fair or as we like to call it, BBW, is a book fair from Malaysia that comes to Indonesia every year. This is the third year I went to the one's in Jakarta and so far it's super fun for a bookworm like me. 


As the title said, it's a book fair so pretty much every single book is at 60% to 80% off. The books are mostly last year or older; so don't expect to find Dan Brown' Digital Fortress here. You might find his Da Vinci Code' though. Books are added and restock everyday so even if stop by everyday, you might find new books. 
But anyway, for the last three years BBW has been held at ICE BSD. The book fair usually lasts around a week. This year it's from 1-11 March. The easiest way to get there is definitely by car. Parking is ample but weekends definitely busy; worry not, there are valet services available and it's a flat rate of 50 thousand rupiah plus parking ticket. Personally, my husband and I had been using valet for the last two years.


Last year I went on a Sunday around 11AM and there were no line whatsoever but this year there's a long line to enter the book fair (it's at hall 6, exit at hall 10). The line is mostly because of the bag check. You can't bring food or drinks (even just plain water is forbidden, I find that super annoying but then again pages of books do get ruined because of water). 
If you do get hungry or thirsty, there's a food court area with a few stalls inside the book fair but I didn't try it since I make sure I was well-fed and hydrated to face the ocean of people. My friend and her sister ate inside and they said the food were not bad. Also, you can't bring your cart inside the food court area and there's a one hour limit of unattended carts. So it might be a good idea to take turns.


As you can see the book fair is HUGE. It's five halls of size and there were tables and tables of books. Basically you can go straight to the area of your interest but honestly every tables were so interesting. It's quite a lot of walking so make sure to wear comfortable footwear. There's no organisation whatsoever so if you find a book you like, just put it in your cart and you can edit them later. That's basically what I did because I can't, for the life of me, find a book that I found ten minutes ago. So I just piled any books that interest me in my cart and I edit them before we went to the cashier. 


My husband and I went on a Saturday around 1.30PM so it was really crowded. If you can, definitely go at weekday before lunch time. They open 24HOURS/day so if you're a night owl, I'm guessing anytime after midnight will be quiet. Or, if you work, you can swing by before work hours. I wouldn't suggest that tho since it took me three hours just to browse around. And I wasn't even doing serious browsing, just skimming really. 


The fiction section was pretty good. I found plenty titles that I have never heard before and truly relied on goodreads.com rating to decide which one to buy or not. I found four interesting novels and ended up with two. I got hard cover novels for only 80 thousand rupiah/each which is a very good deal. Outside the fair, a hard cover novel can easily go above 200 thousand rupiah. The religion and self-help section were also pretty good. I actually piled five books from religion and self-help, but only three make the cut. 
Indonesian section was not bad, I guess. I didn't really browse around. Tried to look the religion section of Indonesian but most of them are for Moslems. The books are cheaper in Indonesian section tho! It can goes as cheap as 30 thousand rupiah/ book. 

The unpredictable fun section is actually the children section! I'm your typical aunt who loves to spoil her niece and nephew so browsing the kids' books were actually enjoyable. Do you know about augmented reality books? Basically, you point your phone at the book and the character pops out. You can even color and tickle said character. If you have BCA card (debit or credit) and buy 7 books of these Little Hippos AR books, you'll get one for free, which exactly what I did. I saved two for my niece and nephew, one for a birthday present, and sold the rest. 
Other than AR books, there are plenty of activity books and picture books. I personally love buying activity books for my nephew since well, it keeps him busy, and it helps train his skill. My niece is not old enough to understand activity book. She loves the stickers tho!

Now that you got your books, you can edit them. I usually just browse the internet and I trust goodreads.com since it's 90% accurate for me personally. I first had 4 fiction novels, 5 non fictions, and 14 children books. I ended up with 2 fiction, 3 non fictions, and 10 children books (8 of them are the AR books). I ended up spend over 1 million rupiah so I was eligible for BCA cash backs but I was too lazy to get them. The cash back can be in a BBW voucher form or points form. If you don't plan to come back to the book fair then definitely get the points. 


When I went there, there were at least 50 cashiers on the clock so worry not, you won't wait in line for too long! I think we waited for a total of 10 minutes. You can use debit or credit card. There's a special lane for cash tho. 

Overall I had fun at the book fair. The staff were nice but not much of a help when you ask where to find a certain book; since there's no organisation, I can't really blame them. There is a JNE outside so if you're a "jastip" service, you can send them right away at ICE. There is also light snacks and drinks outside. 

If you do want to bring kids, I wouldn't suggest it unless it's weekdays. I barely had space to drag my cart and constantly bumped into people. 

Anyway, thank you for reading and I hope you'll find some good books!

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