BBC Studios moves Showcase to London & sets 2023 dates

BBC Studios (BBCS) is moving its annual Showcase event to London and will hold the event across 27 and 28 February.

The company’s flagship content market, which attracts around 700 buyers annually, had been held in the UK city of Liverpool for nine years and most recently moved online during the pandemic for its 2021 and 2022 iterations.

Details of where the event will be held have not been revealed, but its dates look likely to fall around those of London Screenings, the fast-growing event that is organised by All3Media International, Banijay Rights, eOne, Fremantle and ITV Studios.

Last year, those companies were joined by an array of smaller firms including StudioCanal, Blue Ant International, DCD Rights and Hat Trick International in hosting a week-long series of screenings and panels. Organisers said clients from Africa, Australia, China, the Middle East, the US and across Europe attended events, which ran from 28 February to 4 March.

TBI understands BBCS is not formally part of London Screenings, but is in regular contact with organisers. London Screenings’ 2023 dates have not yet been revealed.

Showcase London

BBCS said Showcase would offer “a fresh focus on upstream creative projects from across its range of production houses, labels and partners.” The company will also look to leverage “its global network of local experts to bring content to customers in ways and times that best suit them throughout the year.”

Rebecca Glashow, CEO of BBCS’s Global Distribution, said: “As the market, and our own business changes, so does Showcase. Expect to see our offer to customers evolve from a content juggernaut to a series of highly curated match-making opportunities that brings our most valued partners, producers and programmes together so the richest conversations can take place.”

Ralph Lee, CEO of BBCS Productions, added: “Reconnecting with customers for those early co-pro and pre-sales conversations was invaluable to our producers at the recent Natural History, Science and Docs Days and we’re looking forward to doing the same thing, across the whole range of our content at Showcase.”

BBC Showcase began its life in the Old Ship in Brighton in 1976 when 25 European buyers convened on a seafront hotel to watch shows such as Fawlty Towers, The Good Life and Doctor Who. It then moved across venues during the 1980s before landing in Liverpool in 2012.