3 more days until ICEEfest – 2016 edition

Cristina Blanaru Business, Creativity, Digital & Media, e-Commerce, Festivals & Awards

The 5th edition of Interactive Central and Eastern Europe Festival (ICEEfest), the biggest to this date, will start in just 3 days and the agenda published by the organizers shows a very interesting line-up, including Netflix, present for the first time ever to an event in Eastern Europe.

ICEEfest 2016 will take place this week, on Thursday and Friday, in Bucharest. The festival will start with presentations from Netflix and other global players in the internet sector. Netflix will be represented at the event by  Joris Evers, Vice President & Head of Communications for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and he will give more details about company’s plan to conquer the world and become more relevant to its CEE viewership.

Netflix started as an American DVD-by-mail service in 1998, and began streaming in 2007. The company expanded with streaming to Canada in 2010. Starting January 2016, Netflix is present in over 190 countries. Netflix‘s first widely advertised original series is “House of Cards”, which debuted in 2013. The company also produces hundreds of hours of original programming around the world. As of April 2016, Netflix reported over 81 million subscribers worldwide (46 million in the US only).

eCommerce sector will also be in focus at ICEEfest, as specialists in the field from all over the world will be present on stage and talk about the latest innovations in the field. This way, the experts in sales and optimization  will be talking business, on June 9th, on Focus Stage, while Creativity in eCommerce will be approached in a later panel, that will see on stage professionals like George Frangakis (ForestView), Daniel Prümers (Criteo), Yuval Rachlin (Sizmek), Karolina Janus (Facebook), Marcin Malinowski (Google) or Terry Taouss (Centro).

eCommerce panels will bring in discussion also fashion (speakers: Francesca Fabricio – Zoot, Marc von Brockdorff – Hotjar and Yousuf Khatib – Chief Business Officer Marketizator), AdTech (speakers: Odysseas Ntotsikas – ThinkDigital Group, Dan Balotescu – Prometheus, Caspar Schlickum – Xaxis)

In numbers, ICEEfest 2016 means:

  • 130+ people on festival’s stage(over 100 speakers and artists and guests)
  • 55  know-how hours shared during 2 days
  • 6 hours of fun (live concerts, parodies with known comedians, stand-up comedy with Jeff Leach, short movies)
  • 2 main scenes, one more compared to previous editions
  • 3 specialized scenes (eCommerce, eHealth, VIP)
  • 1  outdoor area and a new entertainment concept (Summer Playground)
  • 7 main lines of content
  • Global Giants: Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIN, Yahoo!
  • Disruption & Innovation: Netflix, Uber, TripAdvisor, Shazam, Focus @ Will, Tumblr, Waze
  • Publishing & Content Technology: CNN, Euronews, VICE, RTL, Discovery Channel, Makes Studios / Disney, Eurosport, BBC, Le Monde, Dogan, Ringier, El Mundo, Corriere della Sera, Gazzetta dello Sport, Ooyala, ChargeAds, The Splice Newsroom, Polar, RevDefender, Mather Economics, Playbuzz, Palladium
  • Creativity, Virtual & Augmented Reality: Hololens, R/GA, LOLA MullenLowe, DDB, BBH Live, INDG, Grand Visual, 4 Wise Monkeys, Innovation.Roks, Immesar, WidBytes, Khora, Innoactive, Inition, Design4Real, Rewind, Art is Open Source
  • eCommerce, AdTech & Programmatic Advertising: Performics, Verve Search, House of Kaizen, Criteo, Centro, Sizmek, Sociomatic, USwitch, TabMo, 614 Group, AppNexus
  • eHealth: DreamJay, 11Health, Atlas, SkinVision, Serious Games Institute, Omixy, Roche, Quealth, CK1, Mira Rehab, Doctors 2.0 & You
  • Startups & Investments: LovinDublin, LaunchHub, ZOOT, Venture Friends, Grants4Apps, 3TS Capital Partners + 10 CEE startups

The entertainment area is more consistent this year and includes Summer Playgroud, ICEE Comedy and Live concerts (R.O.A, Silviu Pasca, Golan).

The festival is presented by Orange, with support from Volkswagen, XAXIS, Jacobs, BCR, Prometheus and Mather Economics, among other partners. Tickets for the event are still available on ICEEfest\s website