Lightbox Expo Returns To Pasadena With More Than 500 Confirmed Guests And 150 Panels

Lightbox Expo is set to make its in-person return to Pasadena for the first time since 2019, with more than 500 confirmed guests, 150 panels, and the 2022 Concept Art Awards.

Programmed with attendees of all professional and skill levels in mind, Lightbox Expo has released details about its expansive panel lineup. Some of this year’s exciting presentations include Creating the World of Arcane; Building the World of Graphic Design at Pixar; Illumination: Creating a Portfolio of Joy & Discovery; Sony Pictures Animation: How to Ace the Job Search; several panels helmed by teams under Disney’s umbrella; an all-star Directors Panel with Brenda Chapman, Shannon Tindle, and Tony Bancroft; and about 145 more.

High profile artistic talent confirmed for this year’s Expo includes Oscar-winning Brave co-director Brenda Chapman, Hair Love co-director and My Dad the Bounty Hunter director Everett Downing, Jr., Dinotopia creator James Gurney, Jurassic Park design artists Mark “Crash” McCreery, Star Trek concept design artists Neville Page, and Oscar-nominated co-director of The Dam Keeper and Netflix’s upcoming special Oni: Thunder God’s Tale Dice Tsutsumi.

Another Lightbox Expo highlight each year is the Concept Art Awards ceremony, programmed to increase awareness of the role played by concept artists in the worlds of film, television, video games, and more. This year’s ceremony will be held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Saturday, October 15.

In addition to the awards for animation, live-action, and video game concept art, the ceremony will honor Mary Blair – concept artist on classic Disney features including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella – with a posthumous lifetime achievement award.

Lightbox Expo was co-founded in 2019 by character designer, illustrator, and Expo creative director Bobby Chiu and Jim Demonakos, one of the directors of the documentary Mike Mignola: Drawing Monsters. Of this year’s event, Chiu said:

We’re delighted to host Lightbox Expo in person after two years of virtual events. Throughout the pandemic, we experimented with ways to bring artists together online including launching our popular Lightbox Expo Discord channel. And while that’s been a rewarding experience for the Lightbox Expo community which has grown internationally in ways we never could have imagined, there’s absolutely nothing like walking through an event filled with over 500 of the most talented artists, writers, and filmmakers working today.

Demonakos added:

Lightbox Expo was created in order to shine a spotlight on the creators behind your favorite animation, illustrations, games, and live action movies and TV shows, all under one roof. This year’s event feels like a homecoming. After our debut event in 2019 we moved online, and we’re eager to get back together to celebrate the arts in person.

2022 Concept Art Award Finalists

Animation: Encanto, Turning Red, Luck, Lightyear, Ron’s Gone Wrong, Vivo, The Sea Beast, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania, Arcane, Maya and the Three, Wolfboy and the Everything Factory, The Ghost and Molly McGee, Star Trek Prodigy, The Cuphead Show!, and Prehistoric Plant.

Live Action: Spider-Man: No Way Home, Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange 2 in the Multiverse of Madness, The Batman, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Nope, Antlers, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, Dune, The Matrix Resurrections, Jungle Cruise, The Suicide Squad, Reminiscence, Foundation, Moon Knight, Wheel of Time, Archive 81, The Book of Boba Fett, Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Cowboy Bebop.

Video Games: The Cycle: Frontier, Lost in Random, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Apex Legends, GRIME, Source of Madness, The Tribes of Midgard, Death’s Door, Risk of Rain 2: Survivors of the Void, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Dying Light 2 Stay Human.