The Big Entertainment Show 2014

We catch up with Wissam Ezzeddine, Project Manager for The Big Entertainment Show, to discuss why this year’s event was better than ever for members of the media industry…

Tell us a bit about the concept behind The Big Entertainment Show…
The Big Entertainment Show is the region’s largest comprehensive entertainment content and media event. It’s a great networking platform for media and content professionals to explore business opportunities across a range of fields including TV, film, video games, interactive entertainment, animation, mobile, digital content, music and brand licensing.

What did we see from this year’s Entertainment Show that differed from previous years?
This year, The Big Entertainment Show was supporting independent content developers to provide them with a platform to meet industry leaders and discuss potential business opportunities, predominantly in the fields of digital and interactive media.

How does the event differ from other entertainment-industry related exhibitions in the region?
The Big Entertainment Show is the only B2B event in the region that focuses on content creation, distribution and aggregation across all platforms. It caters to the needs of media and content professionals in fields of TV and film, games and apps, digital media, brand licensing, advertising and media buying.

Tell us more about the Creative Focus 2014…
This year, the Creative Focus sector of the event was created to support developments in the creative industry, with focus on promoting the digital creativity, content technology and interactive media sectors. It offered immense support to entrepreneurs, developers, producers, designers and creative artists in the fields of interactive media, digital art, apps, digital marketing, e-commerce, publishing, social media and interactive technologies.

Why did including The Dubai International Brand Licensing Fair, the Dubai World Game Expo and MYCONTENT as part of the Show’s lineup seem beneficial?
The idea behind this is to deliver maximum possible business opportunities to the involved companies within the industries of content, brand licensing and game. Each event caters to the needs of its focused business groups, which are mainly broadcasters, retailers and game developers.

I’ll give you a simple example of why these events are held in parallel and what opportunities it holds for content creators looking at the bigger picture.

Look at the case of ‘Angry Birds’ – It started as a mobile game and became a massive hit. Next thing you notice is that the brand gets licensed and then hits retail outlets with a broad range of merchandise. Maximising on the previous success, it hit the theaters and a movie is released!

This is just one of countless examples of success stories with brands: Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse, Tomb Raider, CSI, etc…

How do brands get involved in lineup for The Big Entertainment Show?
The event holds an abundance of opportunities for brands, specifically in the perspective of licensing the brand to licensees, retailers, agents and distributors. These brands will eventually hit retail outlets through different forms of merchandise categories.

For future reference, how can members of the media industry attend the exhibition?
They can pre-register on www.mycontent.ae or onsite during the event days.

How much does it cost to attend the exhibition?
It’s free of charge.

Do you have any plans for expansion outside of the region?
Not massively – Dubai is the media hub in the region, and is the most appropriate place to showcase the development of the media and entertainment industry. We selected it precisely as we want to encourage regional and international attendees to visit Dubai, and aim to make the event bigger and better every year.