Play Creators Festival

How do IP owners and licensing agents take ‘left field’ brands into the world of toys and games? This session delves into some of the challenges involved and looks at the key to successfully giving these kinds of brands the toy treatment.

This session – featuring Shane Hartley, Art Director at Ravensburger North America and Jake Breish, Graphic Designer at Ravensburger North America – delves into the incredible art direction behind the company’s smash-hit board game series, Villainous.

What goes into designing a great Funko Pop! Vinyl figure? Is any brand too obscure to get the Funko treatment? And how does curiosity help fuel creativity? Ben Butcher, SVP of Creative at Funko, shares his thoughts on all this, and more, in this interview with Mojo Nation’s Billy Langsworthy.

What can you do to give your toy or board game the best chance of success in a pitch? How do inventor relations execs nail their pitches to buyers? And which ‘P’ is most important: the person, the product or the pitch itself? All this and more is discussed in this ‘Perfect Pitch’ panel session.

We caught up with Tim Kilpin, President at PlayMonster, to find out more about his journey in the industry to date, and why PlayMonster’s latest launch – Snap Ships – is something special.

If you could only take one toy, one game and one of your own inventions to a desert island, what would you take and why? That’s the question that WordWhizz Deej Johnson is posing to Alpha’s Darren Lee Phillipson in this Desert Island Picks interview.

What makes for great licensed toys and games? How can brands successfully engage with the inventor community? And what are licensors looking for in a perfect toy partner? All this and more is explored in the Playing with Brands Panel session.

This panel session delves into why inventors are important to Universal, what’s key to inventing for Universal IP and what opportunities are there to explore within the firm’s portfolio of brands, spanning Jurassic World to Universal Monsters.

Trend Bible founder and CEO Joanna Feeley pinpoints the trends that have accelerated as a direct consequence of the pandemic and shares how inventors and toy firms alike can identify future opportunities to stay resilient and relevant in the face of these unprecedented changes.

Elan Lee – CEO at Exploding Kittens – discusses the origins of the now iconic card game, sheds light on where the idea for the company’s latest game – Poetry for Neanderthals – came from, and his top tips for fuelling creativity.