The Fun & Serious Game Festival returns in face-to-face format to Bilbao
Industry: Entertainment & Games
The BEC will host the 11th edition of the largest Gamer Festival in Europe on December 10 and 11 Conferences, workshops and professional meetings will take place at a Festival that will be revealing a number of surprises in the coming days
Bilbao (PRUnderground) October 27th, 2021
After the 2020 digital parenthesis, the Fun & Serious Game Festival returns in face-to-face format to the BEC in Bilbao. On December 10 and 11 (Friday and Saturday), the Festival will hold its 11th Edition with a reduced capacity and an agenda of meetings and conferences (these will also be broadcast via streaming), both for industry professionals and for amateurs and enthusiasts of all ages: a meeting point for the main industry players in Europe.
“After a year and a half of pandemic hiatus, this year the Festival is seeking to become a meeting point and a celebration of the domestic gaming industry, says Alfonso Gómez, director of the Fun & Serious Game Festival, a place where all the players on the Spanish and European scene –developers, publishers, press, distributors, enthusiasts, students, etc.– can meet and celebrate the achievements of the Spanish video game industry. To meet again in Bilbao is a very important landmark for the industry in Spain and an opportunity that deeply moves us.”
Health circumstances have shown to what extent video games are an essential element in everyday life, a meeting platform, an art that puts human beings in contact–both on an economic and human level.
After months of changes in which the gamer industry and electronic sports have had to readjust, just like so many other productive sectors, F&S seeks to deepen the fundamental role that video games have played at multiple levels, both as a key economic driver in the recovery and as an artistic platform, but also as an anthropological catalyst.
International experts, as well as top-level professionals, will share their views on the sector in a program that will be revealed in the coming days.
A Strategic Event
The Fun & Serious Game Festival today is a key international event for the video game sector. The Festival intends to showcase its creations, from both an economic-strategic and artistic-creative standpoint.
Video games are a key industry, as shown by worldwide revenues of 104,570 million euros (Statista, 2011) and by the profits generated in Spain, in an upward trend that reached 1,747 million euros last year. Video games in Spain, according to AEVI data, generated more than 7,300 direct jobs and, according to the AEVI White Paper, 57% of Spanish video game studios managed to keep all their employees, and 36% of the studios managed to increase their staff during the pandemic.
At present, as per data from AEVI, Spain houses a total of 415 studios, to which we must add another 240 studios that are pending incorporation.
About Fun & Serious Festival
The Fun & Serious Game Festival, held every December in Bilbao, is the largest video-game festival in Europe and a key meeting-point for the industry as a whole.
The event’s mission is to recognize and promote the work of video-game producers, directors, artists and developers, based on a comprehensive program of conferences, roundtables, networking and activities, aimed at both companies and the general public. As is customary each year, the Festival will conclude with an exclusive Grand Prize-Winning Gala for the best video-games of the year.
The Fun & Serious Game Festival enjoys the support of the Basque Regional Government – SPRI, Bilbao City Hall and the Provincial Council of Biscay. The event’s strategic partners include Microsoft, PlayStation and Ubisoft. The Festival features the collaboration of the Spanish Video-Games Association (AEVI), UTAD, Virtualware and Digipen.
