Japan Matsuri art competition

Tuesday 17th August 2010: Rising Star Games will support this year's Japan Matsuri as the official sponsor of the festival's annual art competition. The company will provide prizes for the competition and print winning entries onto 7ft banners to be displayed at the festival. The festival takes place at London's Spitalfields Market on 18th September.

Japan Matsuri is a celebration of all things Japanese, supported and organised by the Japanese community in the UK . The artwork for the competition will be displayed alongside the best Japanese food and entertainment the UK has to offer.

Martin Defries, managing director of Rising Star Games said "We have built a good relationship with The Japan Society (one of Japan Matsuri's co-organisers) and we're really pleased to be supporting artists that are fans of Japanese culture. Japanese games have such great artwork and we are really looking forward to seeing how artists in the UK interpret this year's brief."

Heidi Potter, of the Japan Matsuri Executive Committee said, "We want to celebrate all things Japanese at the Matsuri and videogames are certainly an important success story of Japanese culture. This will be the first time videogames have been represented at Japan Matsuri and we really appreciate having Rising Star Games at the event."

This year's competition brief is to design a Hero, Villain or Side-kick you can imagine appearing in a Japanese videogame. All styles of design are welcome and the brief is open to artistic interpretation. Those entering the competition are encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and the final entries will be judged on the quality of their pieces. Exciting interpretations of the brief will also receive extra credit.

Entries to the competition will be displayed at this year's Matsuri. The entries will be judged by Japan Matsuri and Rising Star Games, with 14 being reproduced as A1 images for exhibition and a shortlist of three entries being printed onto 7ft banners that will be displayed at Japan Matsuri. A world famous games designer will decide on an overall winner; the eventual winner will receive a Nintendo Wii and copies of Rising Star Games' recent Wii releases.

The competition closes on 1st September 2010.

Send* your entries to contact@japanmatsuri.com with 'Japan Matsuri Art Competition' in the subject line. For more information check out the official Matsuri website http://japanmatsuri.com/

*Please submit jpg files capable of being printed in large format. If your file is too large to send by email, we suggest transfer via online file sharing such as YouSendIt or drop.io

Sign up to Rising Star Game's Media Bank here: www.risingstargamesmediabank.com

For further information, please contact:

Harry Cole (Premier PR)

Harry.cole@premierpr.com

Ali Wood (Premier PR)

ali.wood@premierpr.com

Yen Hau (Rising Star Games)

yen.hau@risingstargames.com

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About Japan Matsuri ( www.japanmatsuri.com)

The first large-scale urban matsuri took place in London's historic Spitalfields Market on 19th September 2009. Previously Matsuri had taken place in Hyde Park (1991 & 2001) but this was the first time a Japanese community celebration was held in the middle of a thriving modern mixed commercial and residential area. 2009 Japan Matsuri was a vibrant and colourful occasion, which attracted some 35,000 visitors (young and old, Japanese and non-Japanese) and much media coverage including internet blog posts and streamed video.

Japan Matsuri is organised by the Japan Society, the Japanese Residents' Association with support from Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Nippon Club, with support from the Embassy of Japan in the UK.

Use of Spitalfields and Old Spitalfields markets is courtesy of Hammerson plc and Wellington Market Company plc.