By Jenny Wagler
Reputation-building and deals are in the air as Vancouver prepares to host the world’s biggest computer graphics conference – and what could be the largest conference the city has ever hosted.
From August 7 to 11, an anticipated 25,000 attendees will descend upon the city and the Vancouver Convention Centre for the 38th annual Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH). The conference and exhibition attracts a wide variety of digital media and computer graphics players, including those in the gaming, animation and film industries.
“On one end we have researchers, technologists who are writing code to display graphics on computers and at the other end we have artists who are using computers who might not be very technologically bent at all but are producing artwork with them,” conference chairman Peter Braccio said.
“And we have the entire spectrum in-between.”
This is the first year SIGGRAPH is venturing outside the United States. Braccio said the top reasons for picking Vancouver as a venue are the city’s beauty – and thus ability to draw attendees – and, more importantly, its thriving computer graphics activity.
“There’s a heavy film production and effects community, there’s a gaming community, there’s a research community, there’s a very vibrant arts community – so all our core groups were there.”
How much does Vancouver’s graphics community care about landing the conference?
“Oh we care – we care a lot,” said Glenn Entis, president of SIGGRAPH’s Vancouver chapter, adjunct professor at the master of digital media program at Great Northern Way and a partner at venture capital fund Vanedge Capital, which invests in interactive entertainment and digital media businesses.
“For the week of SIGGRAPH, the host city for SIGGRAPH is the capital of the computer graphics and digital media world,” he said, comparing it to the Olympics.
Entis said that while Vancouver has made some notable gains in the past few years by attracting studios such as Pixar Canada, Sony Imageworks and Digital Domain, the conference will allow the local graphics community to cement its position on the international stage.
Entis added that the conference is a great chance for the city to attract new studios.
“I think for a lot of people, they may not make the decision in that week, but I think a lot of very valuable seeds will be planted.”
He added that the conference is a major business opportunity for Vancouver-based computer graphics companies to market themselves globally “without leaving their own backyard.”
Venture capital funds such as Vanedge, he said, will be on the lookout for investment opportunities.
“I expect we will meet companies who are coming to Vancouver for SIGGRAPH but also have an interesting story to tell and may be ‘investable’ companies for us.”
Braccio said SIGGRAPH 2011 is being designed to help “hatch” business deals. For example, attendee companies can sign up online for a B2B matchmaking program that will broker meetings between Canadian and international companies. Braccio noted that the B.C. government will also host a session on doing business in Vancouver.
City of Vancouver and Vancouver Convention Centre representatives could not confirm if SIGGRAPH is set to be the largest conference Vancouver has ever hosted, but Claire Smith, vice-president of sales and marketing for the convention centre, confirmed that it’s the largest group the centre has hosted to date.