Author: Simon Nobbs

For two days in August, Animeleague will be bringing their hugely popular Anime and Gaming Con to Birmingham. These events have been taking place across the country and have proven to be massively popular. Let’s take a deep dive into the event and what you can expect from Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con 2024!

What is Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2024?

Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con 2024 is a celebration of gaming and anime culture, and is an example of similar gaming and anime conventions that take place nationwide. These events allow the gaming and anime communities to meet, play games, meet their heroes and, most importantly, bring their favourite gaming and anime characters to life by dressing up!

When is Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2024?

Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con 2024 takes place on the 17th and 18th August.

Where can I find Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con?

The convention is being held at Edgbaston Stadium on Edgbaston Road (B5 7QU). 

Who are the guests at Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2024?

Anime League events always attract top quality performers and guests, and the Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con 2024 is no exception. The line-up this year includes:

• Scott Joseph: the renowned actor and voice artist who has featured in a whole host of titles including Warhammer 3, The Last Hero of Nostalgia, and most recently, Baldur’s Gate 3. Scott has some exciting projects in the pipeline which we’re really excited to hear more about at Birmingham Anime and Gaming Con 2024!
• LELE: After her hugely successful appearance at Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2023, LELE is back for the 2024 edition of the convention. Performing her unique brand of Japanese influenced cyber-pop, LELE blows audiences away with her infectious melodies and full-on colour! She is not to be missed.
• Shao Dow: As well as a martial artist and award-winning rapper in English and Japanese, Shao Dow has also created his own original Manga series ‘The Way Of Shao Manga’, in which musicians have superpowers that become more powerful as their fan base grows. Shao Dow is a fascinating practitioner and an electrifying performer that is a must-see at Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2024.

What events are on at Birmingham Anime & Gaming Comic Con?

As well as guests and performers, visitors to the convention can take part in retro gaming, play tabletop games, watch Manga titles in the Anime Theatre, and buy rare and interesting merchandise. Most importantly, you can take part in cosplay competitions and workshops.

What are the best cosplay ideas for Birmingham Anime & Gaming Comic Con?

Cosplay is a huge part of anime and gaming conventions, and gives you an opportunity to bring your favourite characters to life through fancy dress. In terms of ideas, the most important thing is to choose a character that you love! Don’t worry about gender, body size or skin colour. Expression and capturing the vibe of your chosen character is way more important than being completely accurate in your look. 

If you’re new to cosplaying it’s worth starting small and building your skills. The community is generally very inclusive and welcoming, so give it your best shot to dress up as your favourite character and over time you can refine your costume. The sky’s the limit and most importantly have fun!

Where can I get tickets for Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con 2024?

Tickets are available from £15 and can be purchased from the event website.

Want to study a creative course in Birmingham?

If you’re attending Birmingham Anime & Gaming Con, you may also be considering a creative career. Access Creative College in Birmingham offers courses in subject areas such as:

• Gaming
• Media
• Music

Apply online today to kickstart your creative journey!

The Midlands has been a vital hub for video game development, with many classic games developed in the region. The video games development sector continues to grow, with the West Midlands boasting the largest concentration of game developers outside of London, responsible for over a quarter of all video games output in the UK.

What video games companies are based in the Midlands?

Leamington Spa, which is less than 20 miles from Access Creative College in Birmingham, has established itself as a major hub in the UK gaming industry, with dozens of studios in the town. These include Ubisoft, Playground Games and Third Kind Games. In Birmingham itself, Codemasters are a major player. Established in 1987, the company was sold to Electronic Arts in 2021 for a staggering £1.2 billion. The city is also home to Facepunch Studios, the home of Garry’s Mod and Rust.

What are the best video games developed in the Midlands?

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider has become a full-scale media juggernaut. Alongside the 18 video games released as part of the franchise since 1996, you can also find Tomb Raider branded comic books, films, novels, and even theme park rides. Tomb Raider was developed in Derby by indie studio Core Design, featuring the iconic central character Lara Croft. The combination of absorbing story-telling, a strong female lead character, intuitive gameplay, and all-out action made Tomb Raider a huge hit, with estimated sales of 75 million copies. Lara Croft is also one of Derby’s most distinctive cultural icons and a source of pride for the city and the Midlands region.

Garry’s Mod

Garry Newman (not to be confused with the legendary 80s singer) started Garry’s Mod as a side project alongside a different game he was developing in his bedroom while living with his parents. It would go on to sell more than 20 million copies and become one of the most-played games on Steam, the biggest online game marketplace. Garry’s Mod is one of the first examples of a ‘sandbox’ game, where players are free to build and experiment with different materials without worrying about meeting specific game objectives or sticking to a storyline. While incredibly successful in its own right, for many players, Garry’s Mod laid the ground for other sandbox games including the gargantuan Minecraft – currently the best-selling video game of all time with global sales of 300 million.

Rust

Another product of Facepunch Studios, Rust took the sandbox template from Garry’s Mod and added a gripping survival element. Dropped in the wilderness with only a rock and a torch, players must survive by finding food and water, building shelter, and by defending themselves from attacks by bears and wolves. However, Rust is only played as a multiplayer game, and the biggest threat comes from other players who you encounter on the giant online landscape. The idea of the game is to slay your opponents and steal their hard-earned belongings, either on your own or in groups. Rust is one of the most-streamed games on Twitch and continues to garner critical acclaim.

Sea of Thieves

Developed by Rare in Leicestershire, Sea of Thieves allows players to experience life on the high seas as a pirate. Another example of a game with no linear narrative, players work together to sail ships, explore worlds, and attack enemies. An innovative feature of the game is that artefacts and treasure don’t ‘power up’ characters, meaning that a new player is as powerful as a more experienced pirate. This ‘horizontal development’ means that the game is accessible to all, and fosters teamwork and the development of soft skills in order to succeed. With over 40 million players to date and an upcoming release on PS5, the game has been an unqualified success.

Viva Piñata

Gardening may seem like an odd premise on which to base a video game, but Rare, the makers of Viva Piñata, took this concept and developed a game that is now considered a classic. Players create and tend to their garden on Piñata Island using tools such as spades and watering cans, and as the garden grows it attracts colourful Piñatas. Players then care for their Piñatas and their garden, fighting off weeds, ruffians, and sour pinatas, who love to destroy gardens and generally cause chaos! Developed in Leicestershire, the game was an instant success when it was released in 2006 on Xbox 360, selling half a million copies in one year. Viva Piñata has also aged well, with modern critics heaping renewed praise on this unique game.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day

At first glance, Rare’s colourful platformer featuring a cute squirrel character bears all the hallmarks of a game aimed at children. However, Conker’s Bad Fur Day is most definitely an adult affair, with graphic violence, tobacco and alcohol use, crude humour, and witty pop culture references all featured heavily throughout. Playing as Conker the squirrel, the premise of the game is that he needs to get home from a magical kingdom that he has stumbled into after a night of heavy drinking. However, progress is hampered when King Panther sends his servant to go on the hunt for a squirrel to replace a broken table leg in his palace (yes really!). Chaos ensues, and Conker must fight enemies, overcome obstacles, and solve puzzles to make it home to his long-suffering girlfriend Berri. Although the game didn’t sell well on release in 2001, it was very popular with critics and has since developed a devoted cult following. 

Forza Horizon

Building on the Forza Motorsport series, Playground Games developed Forza Horizon at their studio in Leamington Spa. Released in 2012 the game was a commercial and critical success, spawning three direct sequels. Horizon allows players to race in realistic settings, but points are accrued by completing races in style, so drivers are encouraged to drift, jump, or get their car onto two wheels. Players can then sell or upgrade their cars to up the ante even more. It’s always tough to build on an already existing franchise, but the games in the Horizon series are now considered by many to be some of the best ever made.

Imagibots – Save Eden Green

Finally, this award-winning demo game was developed by former Birmingham Access Creative College student Aysheq Hussain. Aysheq won a BAFTA for Imagibots at age 15, and after enrolling on the Games Development course here at ACC, he learnt the skills he needed to turn Imagibots from a concept into a real-life game demo. In 2022, the year Aysheq left ACC, the game was a finalist in the game-making category of the BAFTA Games Awards, giving Aysheq the second of his three BAFTA nods (another of Aysheq’s games, Backyard Racing, would also go on to be a BAFTA game making finalist). Aysheq has since set up his own studio, Playtime Games, and after achieving top grades on his Games Development course here at Access Creative College, he progressed to Staffordshire University where he is in the final year of the prestigious Computer Games Design BSc degree programme. Aysheq is also an intern at Tencent Games, one of the world’s largest gaming studios, and regularly pops up at gaming events all over the world.

Do you want to follow in Aysheq’s footsteps and learn how to create games? If you’re passionate about gaming and want to kick-start a career in the sector then our Games Development and Games Art courses can give you the skills you need to be a part of this exciting industry. Apply online today!

As an important centre of the UK’s music industry, and as the springboard for some of the world’s biggest artists, Birmingham is home to loads of businesses and freelance professionals that make the wheels of the music industry turn. This includes record labels, and we thought we’d take a closer look at some of the best labels in the city. However, before we deep dive into that, it might be worth covering off some of the basics around what record labels actually do.

What is a record label?

The simple answer to this is any person or group of people that release and sell recorded music. Ideally, they should look after all the business and administration around recordings on behalf of an artist, leaving them free to create. For example, things like collecting royalties, handling requests from people to use the recordings, and making sure the recordings are available on streaming platforms. 

They should also do their best to promote the music that they sell by drumming up interest in the artist or the music they have recorded. It really helps if the person or people behind the label are passionate about the music they are releasing, as they’re more likely to want to get it in front of different audiences!

There are three types of record labels:

• Major labels: These are huge companies with thousands of employees across the globe. There used to be seven major labels, but these days there are only three: Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal Music, which is the largest of the three majors.
• Subsidiary labels: These are smaller record labels that are connected to a major label. Often, they are labels that have been purchased or acquired by majors, or they may have been set up by a major. They still have their own artists and structure, but ultimately are accountable to major labels. Subsidiary labels might specialise in certain genres, styles or territories. Examples are Island Records (owned by Universal), Fuelled By Ramen (owned by Warner), and Epic Records (owned by Sony). Some subsidiary labels used to be major labels, but were then taken over by a bigger major label. An example of this is EMI records, which is now owned by Universal.
• Independent labels: These are record labels that are not connected to a major label. The vast majority of these labels are small businesses that employ between 1 and 10 people. However, there are some notable exceptions such as XL Recordings (who have released music by a range of huge artists such as Adele and Radiohead), and the Domino Recording Company (who have released music by Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand amongst others). They are both examples of large independent labels. 

Record labels of all sizes used to make most of their money through selling recorded music to the public on CD, tape or vinyl. However, sales of music on these physical formats have been falling and are increasingly being replaced by streaming. Streaming is much less profitable than physical record sales, so labels have had to look at different ways that they can make money from the recordings they own and the artists they work with. 

This shift means that labels now provide many more services to artists beyond simply releasing their music, such as booking tours, PR, consultancy, synchronisation (which is selling licences to other companies to use recorded music in things like TV shows, games, or adverts), merchandising, and anything else an artist might need!

Students who study Music Performance or Music Production at Access Creative College learn all about the different functions of record labels, and the different opportunities that there are to work at record labels.

Without any further ado, let’s take a look at some amazing record labels based in Birmingham.

Shadow City

A great example of a business that has branched out into recording and selling music, Shadow City were principally dance music promoters, putting on some legendary events in the city including right here in Digbeth, the home of Access Creative College. They loved the music that their DJs were playing so much that they started releasing it on limited vinyl runs that sold out in minutes. 

One Records

Another example of a live event promoter that also releases music, Birmingham-based One Records is headed up by Adam Shelton, who has been a major player in the city’s dance scene for years. Last year the label released compilation albums featuring some of their greatest tracks via their Bandcamp, and they are well worth checking out!

Oaken Palace Records

Officially a registered charity, Oaken Palace Records donates 100% of its profits to organisations that support endangered species. Artists record music inspired by an endangered animal, with each release benefitting efforts to save that particular species. Check out the wonderfully psychedelic Mad Song by Bombay Lunatic Asylum, which is in support of the Masai giraffe,  or the beautifully meditative White Fur by Parallel Lines, which is in support of polar bears. Most releases are pressed onto gorgeous sustainable coloured vinyl. 

Skutta

Specialising in Drum ‘n’ Bass and Dub, Skutta releases vibrant dance music that is reminiscent of the classics but completely fresh. The Abbattoir EP by Threshold is essential listening; big and dirty with a distinctive Ragga flavour. Best of all, it’s available to buy on blood-splatter effect vinyl!

Iron Man Records

Established in 1996 by gig promoter Mark Badger, Iron Man Records has been releasing wonderfully eclectic music for years. They also provide a range of services for artists, including tour management and legal advice. A highlight from their catalogue is the beautiful lo-fi rock of Redshift (you can hear the glowing track ‘Hanging From The Viaduct’ on their Bandcamp page). Mark remembers: ‘Redshift played the Old Railway in Digbeth many times. I organised the shows. Every time the band played they turned the heads of everyone in the room.’

Punch Records

Starting off as a record store in the late 90s, Punch Records quickly became a hub for rappers and DJs. They have since grown into a fully-fledged artist development agency, working with the hottest young talent from the West Midlands in different creative disciplines. Based in the Custard Factory around the corner from Access Creative College in Digbeth, Punch also works with international music organisations on some very inspiring projects. Watch out for the upcoming Shutdown Tour, which brings five of the freshest hip-hop acts to venues across the Midlands in April and May.

Oriental Star Agencies

An exploration of Birmingham-based record labels wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the legendary Oriental Star Agencies. OSA started as a small electrical shop that would occasionally import and sell Indian and Pakistani records to homesick expats living in Birmingham. It eventually grew to become a globally recognised record label. OSA brought British Asian music to a massive audience, and pioneered the fusion of Asian music with Western styles, influencing dozens of artists and selling millions of records. Check out this absolute banger: the 1996 Bhangra/trip-hop crossover Chura Liya by Billy Sagoo. 

The label sadly closed in 2016 and the entire catalogue was nearly lost forever. However, in 2023 the label and catalogue were acquired by Universal. This means that this extensive treasure trove of nearly 18,000 songs will be safeguarded and enjoyed by bigger audiences for years to come.

Want to get noticed by a Birmingham record label?

If you have already studied a Level 3 music course, you might be looking to get your music on the map. ACC Birmingham’s Level 4 Artist Development course.

Apply online today!