Simran Whitham is the award-winning founder and CEO of Europe’s leading games industry nightlife event and creative production company, FORMATGG, which specialises in creating both high-quality events and creative production for the video game, technology, and entertainment industries
Over the last seven years, Simran has grown what started as a passion hobby event for a 20-year-old game design student studying at Futureworks School of Media, which consisted of 100 people in a bar, to the world’s leading games industry nightlife event movement attended by delegates, businesses, brands, industry leaders, and entertainment personalities from across Europe, the US, Asia, and all over the United Kingdom, as well as a leading creative production company providing leading marketing, creative production, event management, and social media services for top leading entertainment brands.
FORMATGG has two sides to its business: its own independent events and events services, as well as its creative production services called FORMAT Forge, where Simran’s top team of social media specialists, content creators, paid media experts, videographers, and event organisers provide companies and brands with high-quality expertise in all these fields to produce high-quality content and marketing campaigns for the brands they work with.
Simultaneously, Simran has built FORMATGG’s unique marquee event, FORMATGG: The Ultimate Gaming Social, which is also Europe’s leading games industry nightlife festival, which blends a traditional game industry trade show with the nightlife culture. Which attracts businesses and brands such as Ubisoft, Sony, MSI, Social Chain, Escape Technology, Lenovo, Playtonic, Team 17, and many more leading players in the gaming, tech, and entertainment industries to come showcase their projects to over 1,000 attendees, ranging from consumers, industry leaders, social media personalities, and more, while leading music artists and entertainment performers perform live at the event.
“I never intended to be leading a nightlife movement for the entertainment industry! It was a slow burner of this underground bar meetup for gaming and tech enthusiasts, which was just gradually growing on an event-by-event basis, which eventually attracted leading brands and game studios wanting to showcase to our attendees, and by the time we reached 2018, we had created something that had never existed before: a nightlife movement for the games industry.” Simran, CEO and Founder of FORMATGG.
Since 2018, Simran has continued to grow FORMAT’s events and has put the United Kingdom on the map as the country not only housing the world’s only games industry nightlife event but also as the country leading an event many deemed impossible.
Following Simran’s successes in the entertainment and tech industries, he has won and been nominated for notable awards such as MCV’s 30 under 30, SME News Gaming CEO of the Year Award 2023, Game Republic 20th Anniversary Awards, and many more, showcasing the prestige and quality of work Simran and the FORMATGG team are doing across the entertainment and tech industries.
Alongside these achievements, Simran has continued to grow and expand FORMATGG’s creative agency and events services to the point where, in late 2023, the company announced its official expansion of its events outside of Manchester, UK, and now into Liverpool in 2024, becoming a multi-regional agency and events production company, bringing the economic value it’s events bring to the cities it hosts to the Liverpool city region.
“I’m so proud of the whole FORMATGG team for making our expansion into Liverpool as we become a multiregional business possible; without their hard work and innovative outside of the box thinking that enables us to provide quality marketing and creative services unlike anywhere else in the market, none of what we have accomplished would be possible!
I’d also like to take an opportunity to highlight our partners at Escape Technology and Lenovo who have been instrumental in propelling our successes these past few years.”
Outside of his events, Simran continues to push the creative production agency side of FORMATGG’s business, FORMAT Forge, which works in-house with companies and brands to take their creative output, social media capabilities, and marketing capabilities to the next level.
FORMAT Forge’s portfolio consists of industry clients such as Gym King, Rezzil, Milky Tea Studios, Tri-Heart Interactive, Play XD, and many more where they’ve worked to provide in-house trailer and video content production, social media and marketing strategy, paid media activities, and creative direction to help brands and companies maximise their marketing output to the best it can be.
“We’re always looking to assist exciting brands and companies with their projects, whether it’s helping them create an innovative and high ROI marketing strategy, create visual content to keep them ahead in the social media landscape, or make amazing new brand videos and trailers for companies and their products. If you are interested in taking your business’s public image and marketing capabilities to the next level, please do get in touch with us at contact@format.gg.”
Simran and the FORMATGG team have some amazing projects and events lined up for 2024 and beyond, and the company will be sharing news later this year about what they’ve been working on behind the scenes with various partners later this year.
Looking to showcase your project or brand at a large consumer event? FORMATGG’s events are always on the lookout for potential brands and partners to promote at their game-changing entertainment industry events. Start your journey with them by heading to format.gg and reaching out to their team.
You can follow FORMATGG’s exciting work on their social channels on their website format.gg, and if you want to follow the game-changing moves Simran Whitham is leading for the video game and tech industry in Europe, you can follow him on LinkedIn.
