The 11th edition of BIG Festival, the largest games festival in Latin America, has broken records. The 2023 edition, which took place from June 28 to July 2, was the greatest of all time, exceeding the mark of 50 thousand attendees throughout the festival. Only on the BIG Festival’s own social media platforms, there were over 8 thousand mentions of the event, reaching 20 million people.
With the success of the previous edition, the BIG Festival already has a scheduled date for its 2024 edition. The event will take place from June 26th to June 30th at São Paulo Expo, with the expectation of increased attendance, games, and participating companies.
In 2023, the BIG Festival was responsible for over 8 thousand meeting requests from companies in the industry. In total, the festival brought together 725 companies from 56 countries, with 482 of them being Brazilian, and 1,486 industry professionals. Additionally, through the BIG Festival’s Business Platform, over 900 games were submitted for business opportunities.
“Once again, BIG Festival has proven to be a hub of opportunities in the gaming market. Several records were broken, and with the increased numbers of companies, professionals, and meeting requests compared to last year, we expect to break the record for new business prospects as well, which was $100 million in the previous edition,” commented Gustavo Steinberg, director of BIG Festival.
In addition to the records, BIG Festival 2023 marked the worldwide launch of two Atari games in Brazil: Quantum: Recharged and Haunted House, as well as the global trailer launch of Martial Arts Tycoon: Brazil by Good Dog Studios, led by Chance Glasco. In total, the event featured 156 publishers, over 240 titles, 50 launches, and 50 studios with playable games.
Festival attendees also had the opportunity to meet over 1100 influencers, participate in more than 300 Meet & Greet sessions, and attend over 256 lectures in 200 hours of programming. The event was so successful that tickets for Saturday (1st) sold out the day before.
The influencer reach numbers are still being collected, but they have already surpassed the 800 million potential reach mark.
On social media, the event reached an estimated mark of 20 million users impacted by the BIG Festival, with over 8 thousand mentions across different platforms. The official BIG website received over 700 thousand visits during its 11th edition, including B2B and B2C content.
In 2023, the BIG Festival live-streamed the lectures and discussions on YouTube and Twitch, specifically on The Enemy channel. There were over 2,000 hours of content broadcasted, resulting in over 750,000 views of the lectures and other content on both platforms. The BIG Awards, the festival’s award ceremony, was also streamed on Steam, gaining worldwide attention and accumulating over 1.6 million impressions.
For those who cannot attend the event in person, BIG online is available on the internet, featuring various game demos and a large portion of the talks with simultaneous translation. You can access it at https://games.bigfestival.com.br/
Under the endorsement of the Ministry of Culture and the Cultural Incentive Law, BIG Festival is sponsored by Banco do Brasil, Sabesp, Twitch, TNT, and the Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments, ApexBrasil. It has a partnership with Abragames — Brazilian Association of Digital Game Developers through the Brazil Games Project, a partnership with ApexBrasil. It is organized by BIG Festival, Omelete, SPcine, Secretariat of Culture of the Capital, SMTUR (São Paulo Municipal Tourism Secretariat), Secretariat of Culture of the State of São Paulo, Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of the State of São Paulo, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Development, Industry, Commerce, and Services, and the Federal Government.
