The annual ABAI fest and KAVGC Summit is all set to take place this February in the IT city of India – Bengaluru. The fourth edition of the fest and summit will this time be held jointly from 6 to 8 February unlike the previous editions where they were kept months apart.
The merger has taken place due to the body’s idea of creating a bigger identity through the animation/VFX film festival in ABAI Fest and the business conclave in KAVGC Summit. The fest will see the launch of Karnataka’s first 3D animated movie Slick Rick by Bhasinsoft Studios as well as the state’s first 3D animated TV series Rise of the Valiant Indrajeet by Thought Cloud Studios.
This apart, Toonz Studios will be premiering its upcoming movie Swami Ayyappan and partner festivals will be screening content from the US and Poland.
Last year the festival saw over 2,000 people attending as well as 250 people in the summit with the expectation for this edition rising to 5,000. 25 speakers have been confirmed, out of which artist KK Raghava and a Los Angeles director Erin Li will hold webinars.
The 2015 edition is in fact taking place after 2013. “2014 got delayed due to unforeseen circumstances and also in an effort to merge the two properties. The board will take a call to cover it by another edition of the event later in the year or to have the next edition in 2016,” reveals ABAI secretary Ankur Bhasin.
‘Interaction’ is the focus for the summit. ABAI has axed panel discussions and seminars this time and replaced them with ‘clinics’ which was experimented with last year and received a favourable response from the attendees. Two kinds of clinics are expected – one, a round table which has one speaker and up to 10 delegates and the other having bigger clinics with one to three speakers and up to 50 delegates. “This gives us a format where people will find it easier to interact, ask questions and make connects. I am sure that this will change the way current conferences/business conclaves are conducted in the AVGC industry in the country,” expounds Ankur.
While last year the fest was taken to Mysore, it is back to the capital this time with a higher number of sessions due to the new layout of the roundtable and big clinics.
The Government of Karnataka is expected to make some major announcements as well. Though Karnataka focused, participants are arriving from Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well.
One of the key initiatives of ABAI is its ‘Train the Trainer’ (TTT) project which has already come out with three batches of trained trainers ready to enter the market. “The Government of Karnataka – department of IT, BT and S&T is happy with the progress and is looking to grow this initiative even further,” ends Ankur.