Curated calendar with indie game events, conferences and play festivals worldwide.
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May 2019
One2Play 2019
International festival around artistic, cultural and socially relevant videogames. First edition. Exhibition, Arcade, Documentaries, Concert Mount Venus. In collaboration with STUK, Cultuurconnect, VAF/Gamefonds, stad Leuven en Cinema ZED.
Find out more »Arcadia 2019
Join us for day packed full with an amazing array of leading game designers and thinkers co-curated in partnership with V&A Dundee. Coinciding with the latest V&A Dundee exhibition Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, the day will bring together a world-leading group of diverse designers and radical thinkers whose work covers the spectrum of game-making; from practical design, to soundscapes and future technologies, as well as exploring games as a cultural force. Arcadia 2019 aims to unpack key stories from within the videogame…
Find out more »V&A Dundee Tay Late: Press Play
What does a videogames arcade made in 2019 look like? Find out for yourself at our raucous club night Join us for a night of jostle-inducing multiplayer games and intimate, reflective experiences. Our next Tay Late sees the independent and alternative games scene, both local and international, take over the museum. Co-curated by We Throw Switches, producers of videogame events and parties from Sarajevo to San Francisco, the night will turn the museum into a combination of club night and…
Find out more »Feral Vector 2019
Feral Vector is not like other game design events. If you feel like an impostor at games events, you’re not only welcome here, we encourage you to attend. If you are in the videogames industry, but looking for more than it can give, Feral Vector is for you. Feral Vector is fundamentally about outside influences, accessible tools, and the fringes of game design – because that’s where the interesting stuff begins. Website: https://feral-vector.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/feralvector
Find out more »June 2019
BitSummit 2019
“BitSummit 7 Spirits” is the seventh iteration of the summit. BitSummit 7 Spirits will take place the weekend of June 1st and 2nd, 2019, and will be open to the public from 10:00am to 5:00pm each day. As has been tradition since the second BitSummit, all activities will take place at the Miyako Messe, the expansive and modern convention site of the past three festivals. As is by now tradition, BitSummit’s annual theme celebrates a distinct facet of Japanese pop culture,…
Find out more »Giocosamente Toffia Playfulness Festival 2019
Giocosamente - Toffia Playfulness Festival From the website: A new Festival dedicated to Playfulness is about to be born. Playfulness as an attitude and disposition of character and it’s cultivation. How is Playfulness cultivated in life, in work, in education? How does Playfulness expand? How is it taught? How can playfulness make our lives more interesting and meaningful? We will explore Playfulness in workshops and happenings. The workshops will be dedicated to two areas: Exchanges of playful practices for facilitators…
Find out more »INDIGOx 2019
From the website: INDIGO, Dutch Game Garden’s largest game showcase, returns in 2019 with a new name: INDIGOx, marking a new direction as well as the 10th edition of the event. INDIGOx takes place June 28th 2019 at Speys, Utrecht, the Netherlands. 2019 is the 10th anniversary of our INDIGO event. At the moment, we are developing the program of INDIGOx – it will be a more business-oriented event, which we will reveal more about later. Blogpost: https://www.dutchgamegarden.nl/indigox-10th-edition-of-indigo-takes-place-june-28-2019-2/
Find out more »July 2019
Playful Learning Conference 2019
Playful Learning is pitched at the intersection of learning and play for adults. Playful in approach and outlook, yet underpinned by robust research and working practices, we provide a space where teachers, researchers and students can play, learn and think together. A space to meet other playful people and be inspired by talks, workshops, activities and events. In its new home at the heart of England at the University of Leicester, we are now opening the programme up to outdoor…
Find out more »Vector Festival 2019
Vector festival is a participatory and community-oriented initiative dedicated to showcasing experimental new media art that draws on digital game technologies and wide-ranging creative media practices. Presenting exhibitions, screenings, performances, lectures, and workshops, Vector festival is organized by Interaccess in Toronto, Canada, and acts as a critical bridge between emergent digital platforms and new media art practices. The festival organizers are particularly interested in featuring artworks that critically explore the artistic use of emerging digital technologies. Open Call - Deadline…
Find out more »Isle of Games 002
Isle of Games 002 is the second installation of Isle of Games, a one day event that showcases alternative games and playful media from Iceland and abroad. At Isle of Games you can experience the weird, the beautiful, the artistic, and the cultural side of modern video games and its extended family. Before the exhibition opens, you can attend short talks by artists featured at the exhibition. In the main hall of IÐNÓ, you can play games in custom installations…
Find out more »October 2019
IndieCade 2019
IndieCade: Evolving the Game IndieCade accepts and encourages a host of interactive experiences and honors all types of innovative play. From cutting edge digital narratives, large scale social mobile, tabletop games, alternative controller, and augmented reality to LARP's, immersive theater, 360 videos, and procedural strategy games, IndieCade highlights the breadth and depth of innovation in the world of play and creativity in the design of interaction. As creators innovate with new ways to play, the work evolves with them. IndieCade…
Find out more »IndieCade Europe 2019
IndieCade supports the development of independent games and organizes a series of international events to promote the future of indie games. It encourages, advertises and cultivates interactive media and their talent for innovation and art, in order to create a perspective as rich, varied and artful as possible for the public. IndieCade events, their productions and publications' foremost focus is to facilitate new creations of independent games. Games IndieCade Europe celebrates this year’s best independent games. Developers from all over the…
Find out more »November 2019
Game Happens 2019
Game Happens (8-10 November @ Genova, Italy) is the international festival dedicated to the cultural, political and social impact of video games. The 2019 theme is Elements of Change. From 8th to 10th November 2019, Game Happens – the International Festival in Italy dedicated to the cultural, political and social impact of video games – returns to Genova with a fifth edition that focuses on the most innovative elements of the European independent video game scene, to link this field with the…
Find out more »PLAY19 – Creative Gaming Festival
"PLAY is the first an only festival worldwide to unite media art, discourse and education with the culture of digital games. It focuses on the creative utilization of digital games: invent, build, tinker, modify, program, dance, discuss - anything goes! PLAY is the festival for game enthusiasts and gamers, indie game developers and media artists, pupils and students, teachers and educators, scientists, people involved in the games industry and everyone, who wishes to play and learn with digital games." Good…
Find out more »The Overkill 2019
Game Festival From the website: The Overkill is a playful festival which regroups an art exhibition, a selection of indie games (+ retro games + a mini LAN), an alternative movie program, live performances and many activities such as workshops, masterclasses, talks… all selected around our theme and presented together in an original and immersive setting. The Overkill is an open platform, a flexible space for creative minds to meet and an intense time to share thoughts and experiences. With…
Find out more »GameOn 2019 – El arte en juego
It is the first and only exhibition of art and video games in Argentina. This year the international event celebrates its 6th edition in the framework of November Electronic, the flagship event of Buenos Aires that invites dialogue between electronic arts and digital culture. Game On! explores the universe of artgames, experimental video games, alternative controls, interactive play and game studies.
Find out more »GAIA 2019
First International Think Tank of curators and producers of videogames cultural events. The first edition of GAIA is co-organized by Game ON! El arte en juego and Game Arts International Network. The symposium is loosely structured into three themes. Day 1 is Past Successes, Day 2 is Current Challenges, and Day 3 is Future Opportunities. I will be there to give a keynote titled: "10 Years Curating and Documenting Playful Culture Around the World"
Find out more »April 2020
Now Play This [Postponed – tba]
"Now Play This is a festival of experimental game design running at Somerset House in London from 3-5 April 2020, showcasing interactive and playful work as part of the London Games Festival." "In 2020 we'll be looking at games that relate to our theme of 'Breaking Point' - games are the aesthetic forms of systems, and we're looking at works that break or subvert them in interesting and creative ways. Expect everything from small scale remixes you can sit with,…
Find out more »May 2020
BitSummit – The 8th Bit – 2020 [Cancelled]
"BitSummit: Japan’s Industry-Leading Independent Game Development Festival in Kyoto Established in late-2012, BitSummit was founded with the goal of giving Japanese independent game makers a chance to show their games to the world, and we succeeded, growing from a small, industry-only event for around 200 people in 2013, to a groundbreaking festival that held court to over 11,000 people in 2018. Bolstered by keynotes from industry veterans like Shuhei Yoshida (Sony Interactive Entertainment), Suehiro Tanaka (White Owls), Atsushi Inaba &…
Find out more »Feral Vector 2020
"Feral Vector is not like other game design events. If you feel like an impostor at games events, you’re not only welcome here, we encourage you to attend. If you are in the videogames industry, but looking for more than it can give, Feral Vector is for you. Feral Vector is fundamentally about outside influences, accessible tools, and the fringes of game design – because that’s where the interesting stuff begins"
Find out more »Looking for more game industry events?
Check Jurie Horneman’s excellent gameconfs directory.
Looking for festival submission deadlines?
Have a look at the excellent promoter app calendar.
Events for the Dutch industry:
Game Industrie Kalender / DGG / Courage Events