Welcome, Guest [Sign In]

Highlights from KidScreen Summit 2008

	Hundreds of Summit attendees swarmed the delegate lounge for some nibbling, drinking and networking at the opening night party hosted by ToonZone Studios, Animation Development Company and Showcase for Kids.
Nicktoons’ Keith Dawkins got to grill Teletoon’s Caroline Tyre before a packed house at the inaugural and immensely enjoyable Are you Smarter than a Kids Buyer? session.
	Indies John Marley (left) and Loredana Cunti (right), accept a charitable donation from Cartoon Network’s Finn Arnesen (middle-left) and Stephen DeNure (middle-right) of Decode Entertainment on behalf of the Are you Smarter than a Kids Buyer?’s winning Producers team.
Korea’s Trunk Animation and Cartoon One from Italy seal a co-production deal on-site at the Summit.

Highlights from KidScreen Summit 2007

"Great Event, very useful for pushing forward my project because it was so focused and intimate. I accomplished more on my children's project in two days at kidscreen than at two other markets."

-Delegate (2007)

The 2007 KidScreen Summit got off to a fiery start (pardon the pun) due to an electrical fire at the Sheraton in the wee hours of the morning on day one of the event. The delegates and organizers took it in stride and didn’t let the mishap dampen their spirits. Over 1300 kids entertainment execs participated from 39 countries around the world. Session highlights included Trading Spaces where network programming execs were challenged to play producers and vice versa. Good insights were shared and there were many laughs while the two sides poked fun at each other.

A marquee panel moderated by the "godfather" of licensing, Gary Caplan, included; Leigh Anne Brodsky, Elie Dekel, George Leon and Neil Friedman. They shared lessons learned and insights on the business today – a favorite takeaway came from Mattel veteran Neil Friedman who said "You have one mouth and two ears for a reason. Listen twice as much as you talk, because you might learn something."

The event offered many formal and informal pitching opportunities. The perennial favorite, Speed Pitching, offered 288 slots and had programming execs from the major kids networks taking private 3 min pitches. The annual Pitch It session (done formally in front of the full conference delegation) was won by Ken Bautista from Rocketfuel Productions/Hot Rocket Studios for his multiplatform property C.I. E. (Central Institute for Exploration).

The event was kicked off with The National Television Academy’s announcement of the emmy nominations for children’s programming. Pictured here was the show host Johnny Tartaglia (with the Sprites), Scott Garner, ABC Networks Group, and Peter Price, National Television Academy.

Networking is a key draw for attendees of this event so much time was spent schmoozing in the Nicktoons Lounge, the exhibits and at the many cocktail parties. The conference offers a digital networking tool called MyEvent which allows delegates to start their networking from the moment they sign up. Upgrades to the system this year included a customizable agenda and advanced searching capabilities on the attendee list. The combined networking opportunities seem to have works with 57% of surveyed attendees saying they closed deals at the event.