The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Festival will attract brightest and best in the gaming world Event to cement Dundee’s place in computer games industry
A festival celebrating Dundee’s place at the heart of the computer games industry will entertain tens of thousands of people in the city.
The biggest and brightest from the worlds of games design and animation will descend on Dundee for THIS Festival in September.
A partnership between DC Thomson and Abertay University, the festival will be based at West Ward Works, while Abertay will be transformed into the Abertay Arena to host a gaming tournament.
Professor Gregor White, head of the School of Arts, Media and Computer Games at Abertay, said: “Dundee is right at the heart of the UK games industry and THIS Festival is an incredible opportunity to showcase creative talent while celebrating all that is good about games.
“Coming as Abertay marks 20 years since becoming the first university in the world to offer computer games degrees, the event will be a major highlight on the city’s summer calendar and we are delighted to be working with DC Thomson and our fellow partners to make it a success.”
The festival will kick off at Duke’s Corner on September 7 with the first annual Games Design Awards.
Gaming entrepreneur Chris van der Kuyl said the awards and festival were another “classic example” of Dundee leading the way in design innovation.
He said: “The Games Design Awards will focus on design elements of the industry in an exciting, innovative way and it is great that the whole city will get behind these awards and THIS Festival.”
Nominations for the Games Design Awards are now open and those interested in applying can do so on the awards website.
Abertay University is celebrating 20 years as the first institution in the world to offer computer games design at degree level.
Tickets for the Games Design Awards, which include access to THIS Festival, cost £45 and are on sale now.
A second edition of DeeCon will take place at the Works on the Saturday.
Lauren Davidson, DeeCon organising committee member, said: “We are super excited for this double dose of DeeCon this year, not just that but it is going to be bigger and better. We can’t wait to see all our cosplayers and our DeeCon fans.”
Tickets for the festival are available from tomorrow and start at £6, available at dctevents.com/event/this-festival, with £1 from each ticket sale going to Help for Kids.