World Content Market 2008: Post Event Report

By Elena Sunbeam, Market Organizer

First Market, 646 delegates, 368 companies, 59 countries

With the goal of offering rapid and cost-effective routes to relationships between buyers and sellers of audiovisual content, the World Content Market was held on February 25-27 2008 in Prague, the "heart" of Europe, which is known as the beautiful "Slavic Venice", as well as the sixth most visited European city.

I explored many beautiful European cities for our new market venue, but Prague, one of the most beautiful and charismatic European metropolises, was my final choice.

Located in the very heart of Europe, a birthplace of Oscar-winning film directors, a cradle of many television productions and Hollywood motion pictures, Prague can be easily reached by executives from any European country, as well as a very attractive city for our American and Asian participants who dream of traveling through old mysterious European cities.

The first market brought together 646 delegates from 368 companies from 59 countries (including 444 acquisition executives from 245 companies, 140 sales executives from 71 exhibiting companies, 36 sales executives without stands from 30 companies).

70% of acquisition executives came from Europe, Asia (18%), North America (6%), Middle East (3%), Africa (2%). The Top 10 buyers came from Russia (10%), Czech Republic (9%), Ukraine (7%), Hungary (6%), Poland (6%), United States (6%), Italy (4%), China (3%), Germany (3%), United Kingdom (2%), Spain (2%), Turkey (2%), France (2%), and other countries (38%).

86% of buyers were looking for rights for TV broadcasting, following by rights for DVD/Video, Internet, Mobile, Theatrical, and Interactive. Among the genres that were in most demand : documentaries, followed by feature films, TV Fiction/Drama, Animation, Children programming, Light Entertainment, Music, Education, Lifestyle, Sport, Formats, Telenovelas, News/Current Affairs. 89% of buyers were interested in Western European products, 83% in American products, 78% in Eastern European products, 67% in Asian and Australian products, 59% in Latin American products.

Our market was organized in the Movenpick Hotel Prague and was held on three Floors. I chose a hotel based exhibition concept to provide all our participants with comfortable settings for business negotiations. We transformed hotel rooms into first class meeting rooms for negotiations. The second and third floors were devoted to 71 exhibiting companies from Europe, America and Asia, that showcased their products in 50 suites, including meetings with buyers. The first floor was devoted to Market Screenings, consisting of a DVD library with 965 productions. Everyone in attendance was able to locate productions in our extensive Official Guide, followed by personal screenings in the DVD library. This enabled many buyers to carefully prepare their meetings, and to make concise sales and acquisition decisions.

Eight National Pavilions were featured during the World Content Market 2008: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, China, German Documentaries, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, and the Ukraine. The Beijing Office of LIC Australia made a wonderful contribution to the World Content Market, and brought acquisition executives from Chinese TV Channels. AG DOK organized the German documentaries pavilion and brought 16 production companies and 30 documentaries. Bohemia Foundling brought 11 Czech production companies to the Czech Pavilion. The Bulgarian Pavilion united six Bulgarian production companies.

On February 26, 2008, Eurodata TV/Mediametrie, a prestigious research company, organized "The latest International TV Trends: TV turns out to be version 2.0!" a well attended conference.

What is the key of success of our initiative? Everyone knows that the idea of the project is crucial. I had this kind of an idea! I wanted to introduce a new and innovative approach to an entertainment content market, and create a client-oriented event, where we are able to use matchmaking and appointment organizing techniques.

The idea of our new trade show is based upon pre-arranged meetings between acquisition and sales executives. We contact buyers before the trade show, and we ask for a commitment to attend a number of pre-scheduled appointments with other exhibitors of their choice. Indeed, with around 600 participants from 59 countries, we are able to identify and connect our exhibitors with all attendees whose needs match, long before the event. We continue our supporting role during the market, where we see ourselves as the facilitator and catalyst of matchmaking services between buyers and sellers. As an example, any participant can come to our Market Office and call through Skype to another participant, and arrange an appointment, leave a message on our Message Boards on Market Floors, or ask us to deliver the material to selected attendees. Even if you tried every means and could not find a person you are looking for, you can simply ask us to find this person in high traffic areas, as we know almost all of our attendees personally, we will do it very quickly and introduce you to your contact.

After 10 months of preparation (we had been working on our new trade show from April 2007 to February 2008!), after sorting out hundreds of productions in our DVD library, after making thousands of phone calls worldwide in promotion of our new trade show, and after making hundreds of phone calls about matchmaking appointments for our exhibitors, the most exciting and rewarding time was to see attendees working in the hotel suites from early morning until late in the evening, meeting people, making deals, finding prospects, introducing products...

What is a successful premiere without wonderful settings? - Created by Gateway4M (Germany) and based in Movenpick Hotel Lobby, our Official Poster made a very big impression on everyone. A huge colorful balloon flying under aristocratic roofs of an old European city, carrying flags from countries from around the world, symbolizing the eclectic geography of our brand new trade show

Are you interested in meeting your partners and prospects from every corner of the globe, at the beginning of the year, and in one of the most beautiful European metropolises? Would you like to use our pre-arranged matchmaking services, the hospitality of our team, and the relaxed atmosphere of our hotel based event? - Your budget is not the main issue. Our prices are affordable to everyone: from media holding groups to the smallest production studio.

We are currently running our 2009 campaign! Come to our market on February 18-20, 2009, you will surely benefit from our high standard of service, professionalism, and from our individual approach.

Every country, every genre, and every format are welcome!

More information: www.worldcontentmaket.com