The International Animation & Game Business Conference (iABC) of the 17th China International Cartoon & Animation Festival (CICAF) was successfully concluded on September 29. Under the strict requirement of implementing relevant epidemic prevention and control measures, this year's iABC was moved to the main venue of the festival, Baimahu Comic and Animation Square. 16 professional activities had been held in three days, with 227 animation and game enterprises, colleges and universities, and social organizations participating. Partnership Forum attracted a total of 679 people, including 38 representatives of buyers such as publisher agents and 29 representatives of capitalists vertical to the entertainment industry, bringing about 1,646 matchmaking sessions in four half days. Six overseas enterprises from the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Finland, and South Korea sent representatives from their agencies in China to the event for business negotiation. The constantly improving Business on Cloud system attracted the attention and participation of professionals from 47 countries and regions.
In the on-site activities, a total of 54 industry guests were invited to participate in project recommendation, theme sharing, roundtable forum, venture capital investment review and closed-door meeting, etc. 42 project achievements were displayed and released, covering various types of animation, game, new movie, contracting projects and licensing promotion. According to incomplete statistics, several IP projects in the field of licensing cooperation were reached at the Metaverse & NFT Development Forum, with an intended amount of nearly one million yuan.
At the special IP strategy conference of Uncle Dayou, Uncle Dayou and Mr. Duan Jie, Chief Editor of Guangdong People's Publishing House Beijing Branch, Prof. Wang Furong, Vice President of Anhui Family Education Association, and Kevin, the person in charge of content and licensing of Badanamu, signed on the spot about three projects of Wonderful Encyclopedia, Parent-Child Rainbow Bridge and Badanamu Enlightenment Series respectively.
Professional Activity
2021
iABC
Industry Exchange
International Animation & Game Business Conference (iABC)
Buyers Club · New Animation Release Conference gathered a number of projects from five companies, including JOY Media, Elite Animation, Zoland Animation, Shaoshing Weilan Culture Media Co., Ltd. and Intoillusion, which involved a variety of topics and genres such as 2D animation series, children's songs and rhymes, children's science enlightenment, girls' animation, traditional culture, etc. The enterprise representatives showed the latest status and exciting contents of the projects, helping friends in the industry to understand the future development direction and main needs of the projects.
This Outsourcing Projects Publishing Conference aimed to promote connections in animation, games and derivative industries and link outsourcing, joint development and production and other cooperation contents. Representatives from six enterprises, including Alpha Huani Studio, Tianchen Culture, Zoland Animation, Shaoshing Weilan Culture Media Co., Ltd., Younuo Animation, and Intoillusion, published the outsourcing demands of nearly 20 animation and game projects, such as outsourcing of full-process mid-production of TV series and films of Super Wings and Cute Chicken Squad; Zoland Animation's eight animation projects, such as "Magic Eye Sports Series", "Magic Eye Detective Series" and "Magic Eye Space Series", with a demand of animation content of up to 2,240 minutes to be outsourced; Tianchen Culture is looking for a production team to undertake design, pre-production, and mid-production of animated film "Jiangnv"; Shaoshing Weilan Culture Media Co., Ltd.'s outsourcing demand of script production, mid-term animation production for "Lucky Cat and Happy Fish", "Qihuan Shuijingjing"; Intoillusion's three projects release, including "Shi Luo Si Jing", "Project ZERO", "Bronze Fantasy · Bu Yan Ji"; release of the several outsourced production projects of Younuo Animation.
Compared with the events of the past years, this year is different in that it highlights the feature of "new", i.e., it allows more freedom and autonomy to the participants. The Animation & Game Welcome Party was held for newcomers in the circle so that they can interact with others to showcase their own projects or companies, etc. This can make attendees get to know you, your project and company, your field of expertise, etc. in a limited time. Therefore, this event will help more newcomers meet industry guests and experienced people, and have the opportunity to communicate more.
This year, the Venture Capital Conference was divided into four sections, including animation, comics, cartoon derivative industry, and games. 132 projects were received during the collection period. Meanwhile, different types of specialists in the industry were invited to select quality projects. Representatives from platforms such as iQiyi, Youku, Tencent, industry representatives such as CCTV Dream, MoDian Innovation, and Super Smart, and representatives from domestic universities also participated. In addition, the awards of the Conference had been upgraded, whereby the Most Popular Project Award, Jury Award, Most Creative Project Award were presented to winners in every unit, and other candidate projects were also be awarded the finalist certificate as an encouragement.
Animation Unit of Venture Capital Conference of iABC 2021
Pororo the Little Penguin Season 7 won the Jury Award and the Most Popular Project Award
Shanhai Juelun won the Most Creative Project Award in the Animation Unit of Venture Capital Conference of iABC 2021
Cartoon Unit of Venture Capital Conference of iABC 2021
"Sunshine Knowledge Tree" Comics Series: Rhapsody of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry of Four-leaf Clover Children's Book won the Most Creative Project Award.
Juezhan Shuxuexing of Shandong Hanchen Culture Industry Co., Ltd. won the Jury Award
The Cutest Chinese Style • A Journey to Myths and Customs of Xi'an Banyue Cultural Communication Co., Ltd. won the Most Popular Project Award.
Animation Derivative Industry Unit of Venture Capital Conference of iABC 2021
Script Murder of Assassin's Creed of Shanghai Kongran Culture Media Co., Ltd. won the Most Creative Project Award.
WanEnjoy of Morefive won the Jury Award
Mystery Box of Lucky Cat and Happy Fish of Shaoshing Weilan Culture Media Co., Ltd. won the Most Popular Project Award.
Diverse Content
2021
iABC
Whole-line Escort
International Animation & Game Business Conference (iABC)
In addition to the popular activities of previous years, this year also opened the Metaverse & NFT Development Forum and Training Session on Legal Services for the Animation Industry, which are closely following the industry's hotspots and difficulties. It focused on the transformation from PC LAN to mobile Internet in the process of Internet development. The use of the Internet becomes more immersive. As the distance between virtual and reality is gradually narrowing, what will more quality IPs in the field of animation and games do and what will be the future development. The legal session was aimed to improve enterprises' awareness of intellectual property protection, avoid the risks and barriers of international cooperation, and provide financing and listing guidance for enterprises.
Special Session for International Friends collected the business demands of foreign enterprises for the Chinese market, strengthened the communication between foreign enterprises and domestic film and animation enterprises, so as to provide assistance for domestic film and animation to go abroad. Josh Selig, President at China Bridge Content, shared his understanding of the market from the perspective of producing Chinese co-productions in the global market; Zhu Danjun, CEO of Hangzhou Xiaowu and Her Brothers Technology Co., Ltd. shared the development and changes of operation services on overseas new media platform as an entry point; Timothy Giovanni, Training Director of Toon Boom China Suzhou Center, shared how to efficiently use the animation production system to help animation creation.
CICAF National Industry Association and University Representatives Seminar and Industry-Education Integration Alliance was successfully held, in which deans and department heads of relevant professional colleges and universities in China, such as Peking University, China Academy of Art, and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, presidents and secretaries-general of provincial and municipal industry associations in Shanghai, Hunan, Wuhan, Zhengzhou and Hangzhou, initiators of international animation organizations and institutions, and representatives of animation enterprises exchanged by centering on talent training, industry-education integration, recruitment, content creation, and other topics. They agreed on the necessity of strengthening interaction and communication to promote the development of China's animation industry and decided to establish "CICAF Industry-Education Integration Alliance". In this way can we fully utilize the international animation exhibition platform and break through the obstacle posed by the epidemic. It is necessary to enhance industry-academia linkage through strengthened regional interaction in order to facilitate the healthy development of the Chinese animation industry.
As an important part of iABC, this year's IP Authorization Conference, in addition to inheriting the common practices of previous conferences, took IP project cooperation and transaction as the core, including IP promotion, project roadshow, case sharing, and business negotiation. It not only provided more potential IPs and contents with opportunities for realization and derivative cooperation, but also had launched a new content, that is, Script Game Industry Conference. The conference further discussed how to operate IP in the domestic market and how to empower the whole industry chain in order to generate more market value and vitality.
Script Game Industry Sharing Session
This year, iABC has specially developed a Wechat mini program for matching activities. In addition to the complete enterprise library, project library, reservation, registration, and other supporting services, some new ways to play were also specially developed such as punching in to complete tasks and the lottery. Matching big data to cell phones can further enrich the interaction between the platform and the participants and make it more intriguing. The all-in-one system for attendees features more convenient and handy operations.
At the Cloud ACG (Animation Cartoon & Games) Industry Trade Fair in April, the awarding ceremony for 20 projects was held at the iABC commercial communication activity, including "TOP 10 Most Expected New Projects in the Industry" and the "TOP 10 Most Favored New Projects by Buyers" selected by industry guests. This aimed to encourage animation enterprises to innovate and create more animation works that are both educational and entertaining and lead the learning life of young children. The event achieved the linkage of events held in spring and autumn respectively, realizing the vision of "gathering online in spring and meeting in Hangzhou in autumn".