The London Games Festival will return to the capital between 5 April to 15 April 2018, following a hugely successful second festival in 2017.
The festival team have also announced that this year's event saw over 50,000 people attend 40 different events across 20 London venues.
Since its launch in January 2016 Games London has connected 145 games businesses in the UK with 109 global investors, driving over £30m potential business back into local companies, proving how the intiative has established itself as a platform for global business. The LGF Games Finance Market alone this year delivered nearly £20m in potential business.
2018 is set to be bigger than ever, with highlights including:
- The third Games Finance Market (Tuesday, 10 April to Thursday, 12 April) the only event of its kind in the UK, connecting 60 games studios with 60 global games investors
- Now Play This, the three-day festival of playful work and experimental game design
- London’s largest games event EGX Rezzed (Friday, 13 April to Sunday, 15 April), a showcase of PC and indie games, at Tobacco Dock
- The BAFTA Games Awards on Thursday, 12 April at Troxy
LGF organisers are also curating the brand new HUB event which will run between Monday 9 April and Tuesday 10 April. HUB is a new two-day B2B event housing the Festival’s popular summits, a demo zone for prototpyes and start-ups to showcase, a pop-up coworking space and gallery.
Also to be announced soon by the team is a fresh range of activities that bring games to life on the city streets covering esports and street art, plus an exhibition of BAME artists in games and the return of 2017's inaugral Games Character Parade.
Games London is backed by the Mayor of London with funding worth £1.2m from the London Enterprise Action Panel, and seeks to make London the games capital of the world.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “London leads the world in culture, creativity and technology and the city’s games industry plays a major part in that success. In just a couple of years, the London Games Festival has become a major attraction for consumers and professionals alike and Games London is delivering significant investment for our cutting-edge tech sector – showing that London is open to creativity and innovation and open for business.”
Keep an eye on further Games London announcements here or on twitter.