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FESTIVAL OF LICENSING
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Inset: Festival of Licensing is a four-week celebration of the global industry.
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October 6 sees the kick off to Festival of Licensing, the four-week celebration of the global licensing industry organised by Informa Markets. And, while a virtual event can’t replace face to face contact, vp licensing Anna Knight tells LSB why it’s an alternative that can deliver results right now.
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atching up with Anna Knight, vp licensing, four weeks out from Festival of Licensing she tells LSB that “it’s been 100 miles an hour for everyone involved” at Informa Markets. And it’s no wonder – back then, the team was about to hit the 100 exhibitors mark (as LSB went to press this figure had been surpassed), with around a third of those taking part in all three regional events and Anna was expecting the majority of exhibitors visitors usually see at Brand Licensing Europe to be at Festival of Licensing. “The feedback from the industry has been amazing,” Anna tells LSB. “Everyone has been really positive and supportive. My hope when we transitioned to virtual was that exhibitors would consider the benefits of this new platform and create some truly immersive and creative experiences that simply wouldn’t have been possible offline. I’m delighted to say, that’s exactly what they’ve done, and I couldn’t be more
Inset: Anna Knight, vp licensing, Informa Markets. Right & far right & above right: BBC Studios, Penguin Ventures and Acamar Films are among the companies embracing the virtual booths.
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LICENSING SOURCE BOOK EUROPE 2020
excited to see it all come together.” As well as Europe, the event also includes specific weeks targeting Asia and the Americas, meaning it is certainly an ambitious project. Anna continues: “When we organised Licensing Week Virtual in June, we quickly realised that it wasn’t possible to host a global event on one time zone, yet our brands have global coverage and resonance so we wanted to organise an event that would serve all our markets with amazing content and networking opportunities. “By launching Festival of Licensing, we will have regional-specific events that really work for those markets and the customers they serve, and it means we can host live content specific to each market’s time zone, which is much more convenient for our attendees. So, BLE is about doing deals within the European licensing industry, in the same way that our Asian events are about licensing in China, or licensing in Japan. They’re very market specific.” Anna and her team are targeting 15,000 visitors in total over the course of the Festival – which runs from October 6-29, beginning with Europe (6-8),