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London’s Trafalgar Square will be transformed next month as it hosts the second Trafalgar Square Games Festival.
The event is part of the 12-day London Games Festival, which runs from April 2nd to April 14th inclusively, hosting 40 events at 30 different venues across the city. This free, one-day event in the heart of London will take place on Saturday, April 13th to “celebrate the climax of London Games Festival”.
The takeover of the iconic landmark will bring “video games to life in an allowing anyone to come and play against pro gamers, experience the fun outdoor games or get a bit closer to the teams behind world-famous games”. This year, the event will be divided into a number of activities including Play With A Pro with FIFA 19 and a pop-up Kojima Productions Fan Area. There will also be a temporary new statue of Overwatch’s D.va, a 3-metre-high, 1200kg figure made up of 145,276 LEGO bricks.
This year’s LGF will be bigger than ever, with 2019’s edition running from April 2nd to April 14th across the nation’s capital. LGF 2018 brought in some 65,000 people, attending 40 different events across 20 venues, and featured around 400 games in total being shown off. This level of success has prompted organisers to push for bigger, longer, and more in 2019.
The festival, run by Games London (an initiative from Film London) and Ukie, has so far attracted in the region of £40 million in potential investments to games businesses both in London and across the UK as a whole. London Games Festival 2019 will see plenty of events returning, like the LGF Hub and Now Play This, which show off prototypes and start-ups, or allow visitors to play experimental styles of games respectively. There’s also the returning tie-in with both EGX Rezzed, the indie games showcase, and the BAFTA Games Awards.
60 “world-renowned investors and game funders” are expected to attend the fourth annual Games Finance Market as part of the upcoming London Games Festival. While the Games Finance Market is set to run on April 3rd and 4th, the London Games Festival spans beyond that, kicking off on April 2nd and running until the 14th.
