Manchester Animation Festival

Animate North-West

In November 2021 Manchester Animation Festival (the UK’s largest animation event) launched Animate North-West, a consortium made up of some of the businesses based in and around Manchester, to celebrate the unique heritage and flavour of work produced here.

Animate North West is a partnership of animation companies and will seek to ensure that the region offers a competitive, international and world-leading workforce within the worldwide animation community, and to shine the spotlight on the important role Animation plays in the region’s economy and digital skills development.

As part of Animate North-West, MAF wrote a report for MIDAS about the Manchester Animation Industry, and in 2024, with the support of Media City Immersive Technology Innovation Hub we ran an event called Animating Tomorrow for Animate North-West. Animating Tomorrow examined how emerging technologies and innovative approaches are reshaping the future of animation. With digital puppetry, meta human creation, production management and design and layout all explored, labs and workshops empowered studios to push the boundaries of creativity and contribute to the ongoing evolution of the animation industry in the North-West of England. During two tech fuelled days, the Manchester animation community came together with leaders in innovation to celebrate animation in Manchester and to explore the future of animation production together! Featuring Blue Zoo Animation Studio, BXRN, Happy Finish, OptiTrack, REALTIME, RETìníZE and others. You can view the highlight reel below.