The COVID-19 pandemic has been greatly affecting the Japanese animation industry since February, with several important animation-related events being canceled, including AnimeJapan. To cover the loss of many business opportunities, DMM.com, a large Japanese e-commerce company, held Anime Summit, an online business-to-business meeting event for the Japanese animation industry, on 2nd and 3rd July.
A variety of 103 companies and organizations from Japan (and a few foreign countries) had their booths for B to B meetings at the online event. They were animation studios, animation distributors, broadcasters, animation licensors, publishing companies, music labels, game companies, event companies, advertisement agencies, voice-acting agencies, and so on.
DMM.com prepared a virtual event space with three areas for the event:
– Online business meeting booth area
– Live streaming presentation stage
– A free talk area
For online business meetings, dedicated webpages (virtual booths) for the 103 companies and organizations were developed and attendees could book one-hour online meetings (with 11 timeslots available in each day) before and during the event. 15 live video presentations, around 25 to 50 minutes, were given and several presentations had time for Q&A.
For business meetings and live video presentations, the event used Zoom. They also used a unique online chat system, SpatialChat, for the free talk area. This gives participants of the event, who are connecting to the virtual space, a chance to mingle and talk to a person or a group of several people.
Animationweek attended the event as press to catch up on the latest anime trends. We will be introducing you to several key players in the Japanese animation industry, who we contacted with during the event, following this article.
About DMM.com
DMM Group is a large Japanese company group managing diverse e-commerce projects as their main business. The total sales of the group in 2019 was around 1.8 billion EUR.
Since 1998, they have developed more than 40 new businesses without limiting industrial territories. Their business fields include online video and game distribution, securities house, online English and programming schools, 3D printing service, management of a professional football club, natural energy, and of course, animation.