Up until this moment there were plenty Professional arthouse movie events or video games tournaments. Festivals and other events built their audiences that even plan their vacations according to them. However, the time for pop culture has come. Lithuania is stepping into an area of worldwide events and becomes the centre of pop culture in the Baltic states.
Looking at the progress of computer gaming in Lithuania, it could be noted that lithuanians are spending more on legal video games. Lithuania is also investing a lot to local game developers, thus strenghtening the game industry itself. After this change was visible enough, some enthusiasts decided to organize video game industry event „GameOn“.
„Video games is now inseperable part of daily life and Lithuanian developers are catching up with worldwide industry very fast. That is why we organized the first „GameOn“ event three years ago. The event is not just for games but for the gaming culture in general. We are trying to reveal the game medium, to demonstrante the connections between games and popular science, arts and literature“, – says „GameOn“ Head of Communications Mangirdas Beniušius.
According to M. Beniušis, the by organizing the event they wanted to gather not just gamers but also fans of pop culture. „Even though we give the most attention to gaming, „GameOn“ is also suggesting the variety of conferences and discussions, attendees finds new partners and our events have made a valuable imprint in history of Lithuanian gaming industry. We are happy that from this year we will have our soul Brother „Comic Con Baltics“ and we hope the both these event will make Lithuania the centre of modern culture“, – M. Beniušis added.
Besides gaming, the other side of pop culture is rising – movies. During last few years there was a significant 15 percent annual growth of visitors in the cinemas and the viewership of Lithuanian movies are growing rapidly. In the past years there were some specialized cinematic events that people were interested in and so the foundation for „Comic Con Baltics“ were made.
„The idea of Comic Con is not new and it‘s been happening in the world for more than 40 years. We are happy to bring this event to Lithuania. To bring something that is so loved all around the world. This event joins all branches of popular culture and people can find and do whatever they like – dress up like their favourite character, talk with stars from movies and TV series, play video games read or create comics, etc. We did not have events like that in our region before and we have no doubts that people will love it“, – says „Comic Con Baltics“ Head of Communications Vainius Eiva.
„Comic Con Baltics“ will show a lot of areas of pop culture but cinema will be on the main point. The good effect of this event will be recognised by cinema‘s too. „We are happy that „Comic Con“ is coming to Lithuania. This event will introduce the unseen things of the „behind the sceenes“ of movies, people will know what will be shown in cinemas in the future, talk with actors and will want to visit cinemas even more. We think that in long time perspective this event will be an addition to viewrship of movies in cinemas and we will be able to prove to Hollywood studios that Lithuania is a strong and growing region“, – said „Forum Cinemas“ Head of Marketing Dainius Beržinis.
The increase of events will also be visible in other part of growth of Lithuania – tourism. Having the biggest exhibition centre „LITEXPO“, Lithuania becomes pop culture attraction point in the region.
Game industry exhibition „GameOn“ will take place on 16-17 September and the pop culture event „Comic Con Baltics“ will end the year on 2-3 December in „LITEXPO“ exhibition centre, Vilnius.
Photo courtesy: “GameOn”
