The Ace Fair in Gwangju, Korea includes several well-known names from the industry. Organised by the Korean government, the event showcases content exhibitions in fields such as broadcasting, audiovisual, animation, characters, games, edutainment, as well as a variety of content licensing.
The 2023 Indian AVGC delegation’s exhibitors to The Ace Fair comprise VidUnit’s Sourabh Kumar and Sohail Mir, Hi-Tech Entertainment’s Ashish Thapar and Subrata Roy, Media and Entertainment Skills Council’s Roshni Sehgal, philmCGI’s Anand Bhanushali, RDC Entertainment’s Durgaram Choudhary and more. While Chandigarh Design School founder Vineet Raj Kapoor is participating as a virtual exhibitor, MediaGuru’s Subhashish Mazumdar is participating as buyer.
The last delegation in 2019 saw Lakshya Digital, Y-Gaming, Virtualsoft, and more companies. The 2022 delegation had Prismart, Gyan Era, Funsaga, Hi-Tech Entertainment, AP International, IN10Media, and Virtualsoft as Indian exhibitors.
Like all the past years, this year, the Indian AVGC Delegation was put together by Virtualsoft, which is the approved Indian agency by Ace Fair Korea. This year, the delegation received multiple incentives for participating in the event. The exhibitors got a 50 per cent Fair Refund, 23 per cent Early Bird Discount, a US$500 worth Content Developer Conference Ticket, a Translator at service, a free four nights hotel stay, pick and drop from Seoul to Gwangju, and daily pick and drop from their hotels, free networking party option, a free city tour with culture, heritage ending with a Korean dance performance. The meetings, as always, are pre-fixed with the mutual consent of the exhibitors and buyers and carried on with clockwork precision with 30 minutes to each meeting done at either the business lounge or at the exhibitors’ booth.
The Indian contingent coordinator and leader Kapoor shared, “I have been participating in Ace Fair for the 11th time, and as always it has been a great event as well as great cultural experience every time. The organisers have always packed in surprises in the city tour. All hats off to the Gwangju Sports Culture and Tourism who has always backed the event with complete backing including funding the stay and trips of the exhibitors and buyers. This has allowed to event to become an important event in the international circuit. The delegates have grown to 10 this time. We are expecting around 20 delegates or more next year.”
Bikramjit Singh, who is managing the Indian contingent alongside Kapoor this time, mentioned, “The event runs for four days from 14-17 September 2023 with the B2B section taking place on 14-15 September 2023. There are more than 400 Exhibitors, 500 Booths from 30 countries. The marketplace covers broadcasting, animation/character, digital content (game/ VRAR/ metaverse etc.).”
Virtualsoft Technologies manager Bikramjit Singh shared, “Ace Fair is hosted by Ministry of Sports, Culture and Tourism, Gwangju Metropolitan City at the Kimdaejung Convention Center. It is organised jointly by Kimdaejung Convention Center, Gwangju Tourism Organization, Gwangju Information & Content Agency (GICON), Korea Cable Television & Telecommunications Association (KCTA), Gwangju Institute of Design Promotion (GIDP) and Kotra (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency).”