Today, Brazil Games is pleased to announce the new date for Brazil’s Independent Games (BIG) Festival, the largest and most important independent games festival in Latin America. The eighth edition of BIG Festival will take place at the Frei Caneca Convention Center in São Paulo from May 5 to 9, 2021. BIG returns with a renewed focus on its three core pillars — lectures from highly respected industry professionals, face-to-face business meetings, and the expansive and fan-favorite consumer festival.
With support from Brazil Games Export Program, a partnership between the Brazilian Game Companies Association, ABRAGAMES, and the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (Apex-Brasil), BIG Festival carries on the tradition of providing a fundamental business hub for video game professionals across the globe through its lectures, networking events, and face-to-face meetings.
“We are happy to announce the new date for the physical version of the BIG Festival,” said Gustavo Steinberg, Director of the BIG Festival. “Our hope is that by May 2021, the situation with the Covid epidemic will have improved to the point where the festival can return to a physical in-person format.”
As part of the BIG Festival, the International Independent Games Contest will be making a return. The competition features 18 awards categories and gives independent teams a chance to showcase their creations to an audience of their peers, and the world! Developers who are interested in entering may register via the official website: https://www.bigfestival.com.
BIG Festival’s announcement follows the highly successful inaugural launch of its online event, BIG Digital, where more than 22,000 people tuned in to enjoy the 25 available seminars in both Portuguese and English. These game development seminars featured panels and discussions from 72 industry luminaries such as Epic Games, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, (Xbox), Nintendo, Snapchat, and Ubisoft, and generated more than 1.3 million views. From June 22 through June 26, 2020, more than 333 publishers, developers, and investors from 38 countries participated in 3,876 business meetings. These crucial virtual meetings resulted in an estimated $7 million USD in business deals during the show, which is anticipated to result in an estimated $33 million USD in games-related business over the next 12 months.
