In a quarter century bouncing back and forth between Europe and Latin America, SPIRE has never visited Peru, home of some of the world's best scenery, archaeology and food. It's time that changed and we look forward to greeting you in Lima in October 2018. SPIRE will take place Tuesday October 9th to Thursday October 11th in Lima, with a StringMasters workshop on Monday October 8th and the 13th Workshop on Compression, Text and Algorithms (WCTA 2018) on Friday October 12th. SPIRE will be co-located with the 11th International Conference on Similarity Search and Applications (SISAP 2018), which will run concurrently in the same building so attendees can participate in both.