Animex focus on the business side

Jan 14 2010 By The Journal

AN event for games and animation companies is aiming to show off the North East's creative talent and hopes to attract investment into the region from some of the industry's big names.

Next month’s Animex Festival is staging its first business- focused day, which will hear from some of the sector’s top international animation and games experts.

Former Disney Feature Animation and Warner Bros Feature Animation boss Max Howard, who now runs the Exodus Film Group, will be one of the keynote speakers.

Gareth Edmonson, from gaming giant Ubisoft Reflections, will look at the way computer games and animation came together to create worldwide box-office hit Avatar at next month’s event.

Chris Williams, director of the Teesside University-organised festival, says that putting together a day specifically targeted towards businesses is a natural development for Animex.

"We’ve noticed for the last two or three years when we’ve been running Animex that people have business meetings at the events as well as hearing about the creative side," he said.

"People meet and discuss deals and ideas so we thought we’d try to cater for businesses."

He also hopes the event will act as a showcase for the region’s creative companies and attract the attention – and money – of the big players in the industry.

"We hope this is one way to catalyse that," said Mr Williams.

"We’d like people in the business to see there is talent here and consider investment here. The industry here is not huge – though the games industry has a good reputation.

"We really hope that the North East’s creative industries sector sees the benefit of this event and would like to think that by bringing people together in this way we can help to encourage the development of the industry as a whole in the region."

Animex Business, which runs from 9am to 5pm, will be held at the Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle on February 10. The Animex Festival is now in its 11th year and runs from February 8 to 12.