Lane confirms GamePlan event postponed

Andy Lane, managing director of Tandem Events, has confirmed that this week's GamePlan event has been postponed due to scheduling issues.

Announced last year, the invite-only show was billed as the place for retail to meet with publishing partners and compare forthcoming titles to inform stocking decisions.

But speaking to GamesIndustry.biz this morning, Lane said that the announcement by Ubisoft to hold it's retail and media event, Ubidays, at the same time, forced Tandem to put GamePlan back to early July.

"It's been postponed, not cancelled," confirmed Lane. "We took the decision when Ubidays decided to be on exactly the same date and there was little point in doing it."

Lane now hopes to get around ten publishers and ten retail chains together, and he still believes that it can prove more valuable than publisher's own-brand product events.

"Because of the nature of the beast, it's deliberately low-key. It about 100 people in one location," he said. “It's putting those people together in a meeting-only environment, so nobody builds booths.

"Retail has said that it misses the chance to see product side by side – it's great to go off to THQ or Ubisoft events but if you've got two weeks between them it's actually difficult to compare and contrast the different products."

More details on the rescheduled GamePlan are expected this week.