Ahead of the drama biz decamping to northern France,Series Mania ForumDirectorFrancesco Capurrobreaks down the plan for 2025.
How will you adapt to the changes?
But I dont want to be too pessimistic.
Series Mania’s Forum is a diary date in the drama businessSeries Mania, Nablezon
There are still a lot of series made every year.
Its different in different places.
CAPURRO:For us, it is quite a big move.
Its the first time that we have had an event entirely dedicated to the buyers and the distributors.
That is important for us.
DEADLINE:Does it speak to your event becoming more of a market?
CAPURRO:Yes, I am not afraid of using the word market.
But in recent years, we have seen more and more exhibitors coming to the event.
All the big players in the market have a booth in the Palais.
We already have a showcase of upcoming show from different territories and now we add these Buyers Upfronts.
DEADLINE:With that evolution, do you expect a more buyers this time?
CAPURRO:Yes, of course, it was part of the reason why we have this new event.
We invited about 100 top buyers from TV channels and platforms from all over the world.
DEADLINE:Lets drill down a little.
What do you see in terms of the buyer attendance, is it mostly European?
CAPURRO:Mostly, yes, because we are based in Europe.
DEADLINE:Across the piece, what does the overall attendance from outside Europe look like?
CAPURRO:We keep working a lot with Taiwan and Korea.
These are the biggest delegations that we have from Asia.
We see growth potential in Latin America because its such a huge market.
Its something that we will explore in the coming years.
We are happy to welcome a big delegation from Africa.
There is a common interest in collaborating more and more with Africa.
DEADLINE:In terms of the conference and sessions, what can we expect?
We take a stab at have the biggest players in the market to announce their lineup and upcoming shows.
They organize meetings between producers and agents.
CAPURRO:We started three years ago by launching this creative marketing award.
At the beginning people were a bit surprised about this choice.
Its important to give a spotlight to those initiatives, because its important for the industry.
DEADLINE:Lets sign off by talking numbers.
The calendar has changed with MIPTV no longer happening in April.
How do your registrations look this time?
CAPURRO:We have more and more requests for participation and also for exhibiting at the event.
I think our place is quite solid.
People are continuing to come, and more people are attending.
MIPTV was multi-genre so the MIPTV goers are split now across different events depending on the topic.
The ones who worked in fiction are coming to us, but most of them already came.
So, I dont expect a huge growth in numbers.
I think that we will be more or less the same or a little bit more this year.
