NEoN Digital Arts Festival 2009

Dundee: Thursday 24th September 2009 – The mammoth line up for NEoN Digital Arts Festival 2009 continues to get bigger with the addition of a rare Q&A session with iconic cartoonist, animator and character designer for Pixar Bud Luckey. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pose a burning question directly to the creator of characters from such classic films as Toy Story, Boundin’, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, The Incredibles and Ratatouille.

To avoid disappointment, NEoN is looking for people working within the digital arts to get pose their question early via our official Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/weareneon. We will pose the three best questions to Bud on your behalf and send you his response following his session. For more information on the sessions, ticket prices and fringe event details, please visit http://www.northeastofnorth.com.

Bud joins a string of top-billing speakers including Dave Jones of Realtime Worlds, creators of the Xbox 360 smash hit Crackdown, Andy Sithers, academic manager at Microsoft, Simon Parsons of the BBC and Tommy Tallarico and Jack Wall from Video Games Live! The speakers compliment an impressive, soon to be confirmed line-up of speakers from the digital, interactive, online, television and movie sectors.

Running across the city of Dundee from Friday 13th to Sunday 15th of November, NEoN is the newest calendar event for the digital media industry. It will bring together academics and professionals working or studying within the sector, as well as providing a wealth of fringe events available to the general public, including exclusive hands-on sessions with the latest video games, art exhibitions and exclusive film showings.

Early bird ticket prices will come to an end on September 30th so please book soon to take advantage of our reduced rates. For ticket pricing, event details and the official programme, please visit http://www.northeastofnorth.com

-ends-

For more information on NEoN Digital arts Festival, please contact:

Donna Fordyce

Project Manager - Industries

Scottish Enterprise

Enterprise House

3 Greenmarket

Dundee DD1 4QB

T:01382 305585

F:01382 201319

E: donna.fordyce@scotent.co.uk

W: www.scottish-enterprise.com

Dave Cook

Managing Director

Ink Media

m: 07525-358-281

w: www.ink-media.co.uk

twitter: davescook

About Interactive Tayside

Interactive Tayside is a partnership between public, private and academic sectors to develop and promote Tayside's digital media industry. Digital media represents a key part of Tayside's economy and through Interactive Tayside, a local delivery mechanism has been established that aims to build the digital media industry in the area, encourage higher levels of collaboration between businesses and with academia, develop new commercial opportunities and promote the high-quality skills and talents of the area's digital media practitioners to a wide audience.

Historically, Tayside has always been a hot-bed of creative talent, particularly in the publishing, design and music industries and the area has always been renowned as a breeding ground for innovation and skills.

Today, Tayside continues to enjoy a vibrant and rapidly expanding cluster of businesses, organisations and individuals engaged in digital media and creative industries sectors. There are over 350 businesses operating in the area of digital media in Tayside, employing over 3,300 people and generating a combined annual turnover in excess of £185 million. The sector has experienced growth in employment of 225% since the year 2000 and a further two thousand jobs are expected to be created in the sector within the next 3 years (by 2010).

The area's 2 universities and 3 further education colleges carry out leading edge research and deliver innovative and high quality teaching across a wide range of digital media related subjects. Every year, over 900 students, from over 50 different nationalities, graduate in digital media disciplines from the region's higher and further education institutions.

Computer games and electronic entertainment, mobile platform development, software development, animation, graphic design, publishing and music and just some of the specialisms in which Tayside companies excel.

The region is home to many exciting digital media companies including Scotland's largest games development studio, Realtime Worlds, BAFTA Award winning mobile development studio Dynamo Games, 2d and 3d animation studio, Ink Digital, and also the largest internet service provider in Scotland, ScotlandOnLine. Tayside's success stories in these industries are numerous.

Though Interactive Tayside, liaison between businesses, academic institutions and support agencies is actively encouraged, creating a stimulating environment in which 'start-ups' and established companies alike can quickly translate ideas into commercial reality.

In addition to this informative, regularly updated website offering all the latest news on Tayside's digital media industry, Interactive Tayside offers a regular events programme; events that are free and open to everyone, covering a variety of topics relevant to the digital media industries and affording ample opportunity for attendees to network informally with like-minded individuals. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter so as not to miss out on all of the region's digital media news and invites to our events.

Enterprise is actively encouraged in Tayside by a flexible and dynamic support structure. Everything you need to develop your business or turn ideas into reality is available here from a variety of institutional and commercial sources. As you would expect from a centre with a renowned academic reputation, Research and Development and training and skills are thick on the ground for large and small businesses. With this support, Tayside continues to be a rich source of intellectual capital, media content and commercial opportunity.

The vision for the digital media industry in Tayside is to become ever more renowned for the standard of its creative and technical talents and skills, internationally recognised for the quality of its products and level of innovation, globally networked, and make an every increasing contribution to the economy of the Tayside area and Scotland as a whole - establishing Tayside further as an international centre of excellence in digital media.