Edinburgh Interactive appointments

Monday 18th January/... Edinburgh Interactive Festival today announced some further heavyweight appointments that will fortify the event and secure its place as one of the World’s leading family arts and cultural festivals. The Executive Committee has been boosted by the addition of Ray Maguire, UK MD of Sony Computer Entertainment; Disney Interactive’s Matt Carroll and Wendy Rosenthal from Hyper Entertainment.

“These new appointments to the Executive Committee further echo the gravitas of Edinburgh Interactive and are a great move towards building on the events success as one of the most important in the World’s event calendar” said Chris Deering, Chairman of Edinburgh Interactive.

“There has been some great support over recent years, and am particularly pleased to see companies like Disney, Sony and Nintendo looking to play a bigger role in the festival this year,” noted Deering.

Ray Maguire added: “The Edinburgh Interactive Festival is not only a key event in the games industry calendar, but in all creative and interactive industries. It is a perfect arena for anyone with an interest in games, interactivity and entertainment to cumulate and share ideas within the fantastic conference schedule, programme of screenings and public engagement areas. It has it all, and I am thrilled to be a part of making it happen this year.”

The Executive Committee now boasts a considerable collection of industry luminaries and more appointments are expected to be made.

The Edinburgh Content Committee meanwhile includes:

Chris Deering Chairman of Edinburgh Interactive,

CEO of Some Research Sean Dromgoole,

Kieran O’Neill CEO/Co-Founder of Playfire,

Managing Partner of Hemisphere Capital Matt Rothman,

Peter Cowley Global Head of Original Digital Programming at Endemol,

Wendy Rosenthal of Hyper Entertainment,

Content and Creative Manager at BH Chris Tufnell

Executive Director of Redbedlam Ltd Fred Hassan

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Information for editors:

Edinburgh Interactive 2009 line-up included:

A keynote session by Peter Moore, President EA Sports and a session by Playfish CEO and Co-Founder Kristian Segerstrale.

Sessions from Endemol, Turbine, Some Research, Smalti, Olswang LLB, Oil and Playfire.

Panel sessions by CEO of Sulke Corp, Chairman of Bigpoint Games and Head of business Development at Jagex Ltd.

Games industry luminaries Margaret Robertson and Edge Online Editor Alex Wiltshire also spoke.

For more information visit www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com

About Edinburgh Interactive 2010

Now celebrating its eighth successful year, Edinburgh Interactive is powered up to showcase the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games. And this year, the Interactive Festival is more synchronised with the world famous Edinburgh Festival than ever, appealing to the press, public and professionals from film, television and interactive media backgrounds alike, offering a bigger event for delegates, more consumer focusing – an overall spectacle for all.

As ever, Edinburgh Interactive wouldn’t be complete without the cornerstones of conferences, keynotes, panel sessions, debates, games screenings and even more people than ever jostling to get through the doors.

Edinburgh Interactive is managed by an Executive committee and a board drawn from all areas of the games industry, including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies: The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) http://www.tiga.org and the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) http://www.elspa.com. EIGF Ltd is the non-profit company behind the festival.