17 Mar Getting into business at CARTOON
Thanks to FFF Bavaria we got the opportunity to visit our first international conference in Lyon, France. In the following report about Cartoon Games and Cartoon Movie I will describe our personal perspective of the event including the advantages and disadvantages for a (indie) games studio. Additionally I hope it will may help the one and other to prepare well for this one
- Preparation & Presentation
- Minority Germany (Games related)
- Cartoon Games 1-2-1 Meetings
- Cartoon Movie Impressions
Preparation & Presentation for Cartoon Games
Thankfully we got some partner studios here in Munich to share experiences regarding projects but also events. Shortly before Cartoon Games started, I fortunately had a meeting at Mimimi Productions who already visited Cartoon Movie in Lyon some years before. The most important advice, as we have even noticed, was the preparation of a short PowerPoint-Presentation on a tablet or laptop to show to potential partners or business contacts. ( In my opinion tablets are the perfect device for these pitches which have to be made on the smallest amount of space including uncomfortable positions of sitting. Laptops are pretty bulky in these situations )
I was indeed happy to have my tablet with me, because I met a pretty busy, but open-minded business contact on the bus drive to our hotel in the evening and had to pitch our studio from the back seat of a driving bus to the guy sitting in the seat in front of me… ( Which, in the end, worked out pretty good )
Of course, next to the studio-pitch, business-cards are indispensable for these events. You should really make some notes for every person you get a business-card or an email address from ( probably directly on the business-card ), because even if you nearly start directly after the event following-up all the new contacts you made, it’s still pretty hard to allocate which card will match to the right person in your mind.
Minority Germany (Games)
After reaching the airport in Lyon, the Cartoon Media team already waited for us to pick us up with personal shuttles, to bring us directly into our hotels or, in our case, directly with our luggage to the venue, because we had a pretty short timetable ( Luggage could be stored away at the venue ). We already met our companion Michaela Haberlander from FFF Bavaria Games at the airport in Munich. She led us through Cartoon Games and Cartoon Movie, thanks at this point for all the effort brought in. Next to her, the only indirectly games-related contacts from germany we met were two nice guys from Sonic Bunch which specialized on sound and music.
Of course it wasn’t any problem that nearly no german studio was present ( Cartoon Games isn’t that old ). It was a great opportunity for us to meet representatives from game studios out of France or elsewhere in the world and to get insights of working pipelines or the financing of their games-projects in these countries.
Cartoon Games Meetings
With our well prepared presentation in the bag, far too less business cards in our pants ( which we didn’t knew at this time ) and a bit of confusion in our minds where to find the meeting area, we entered the venue and tried to find the right way to the cloakroom.
We were recognized by the Cartoon Media staff pretty fast ( two german guys wandering around with their luggage at the venue shortly before the meetings start are pretty eye-catching ) who helped us out getting our luggage down at the cloakroom and reaching the 1 to 1 meeting area. At this point I have to say that the complete organization of the Cartoon Games and Cartoon Movie event was absolutely brilliant. Even if you forgot nearly all tickets, plans and timetables, which we didn’t, they got your back with ready to print documents on their computers and staff to help out on any problem.
Now, with the luggage stored away and refreshing drinks from the bar we managed to finally find our table at the venue. There were about twenty tables including Wifi-Data which was accessible from the whole venue. When registering for the Cartoon Games event, every attendee will get the opportunity to choose some companies he want to meet at the venue for possible partnerships. After the matching process is done, all attendees will receive a timetable with meetings including the table number where to meet and the company which will be there for a 20 minute short talk or presentation.
Meetings were very interesting, we met a lot of personalities from very different kinds of industries. I won’t go into detail for every single meeting so overall it was successful and we got a lot of new contacts ( referring to the business card staple ), which are useful for questions regarding games or movie topics but also for new projects to work on in collaboration. I mentioned that there is a huge interest of movie companies which want to get a foot into the games industry, for advertising but also for creating a whole game next to their movie project, but it is still something like a new world for the most of them which is dangerous to move in – especially budget-wise…
By the way, the meetings were hold in the main hall of the venue. It was a wide opened room, therefore it was pretty noisy, but the noise level reduced the excitement ( at least we were excited ) and produced a pretty nice “feel-good” mood between all the business-meetings. But to be honest, we didn’t had much time to be excited, because the meetings started instantly on time and where so short, that mostly both sides couldn’t finish their presentation until the next meeting. But luckily all days following after the Cartoon Games day were available for getting connected better if there was an interesting opportunity.
Impressions of Cartoon Movie
The following two days after Cartoon Games gave us the opportunity to take a look into the movie-scene. There were a lot of talks about the movies which got pitched on Cartoon Movie and during the talks every producer opened up some views behind the scenes, how everything is done and what workflow or pipeline they are using. In the evening we had some opportunities to join dinner and get connected to even more new people, but on a bit more casual way as at the business meetings ( which is preferred by me ) and with a lot of excellent whine!
Of course you should focus on the work when visiting such events, but, in our case, Lyon was a wonderful city and some walks through the streets of Lyon or visits in some attractions shouldn’t be missed there. We were able to see a lot of the city when we missed our bus and tried to walk to the venue but lost our way and went through a huge part of the inner city of Lyon… ?
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