London, October 11, 2017

Vivendi’s Copyrights Group and MackMedia announce
major new partnership for Paddington™ at Europa Park

 

The Copyrights Group, which acts as merchandise licensing agent for Paddington Bear, and MackMedia are excited to announce the arrival, this Christmas, of Paddington at Europa-Park, the largest seasonal theme park in the world, where he will be a central feature of the England themed area.

The announcement was made today on the second day of Brand Licensing Europe, the pan-European event dedicated to licensing and brand extension.

Located in south-western Germany, one of the major theme park worldwide welcomes over 5.5 million visitors per year with its 15 European themed areas. More than 100 attractions and shows await visitors on a site measuring 95 hectares. The park’s five 4* themed hotels make Europa-Park a unique short break destination in the border triangle of Germany, France, and Switzerland.

The long-term partnership with Europa-Park will offer Paddington fans a new journey to include a VR Ride, re-branded within the England themed area with Paddington’s environment, and a dedicated Paddington shop.

From Spring 2018 the first ever Paddington ice show will launch at the park. This 30 minute show will run until the Autumn of 2018 when Paddington will go ‘on tour’ all over Germany with an all new full length, action-packed ice show enabling Paddington fans to experience his adventures on ice. Europa-Park has won many Brass awards for their ice shows and has a proven track record of delivering high quality shows that thrill their audiences.

The announcement comes just a few weeks before the opening of the feature film Paddington 2, which will start in the UK on November 10 and then roll out around the world. A first mobile game called Paddington Run will also be launched worldwide on all platforms at the end of October.

Lucien Boyer, Chief Marketing Officer at Vivendi, the parent company of The Copyrights Group, said: “We are really pleased to partner with the great team at Europa-Park and be able to offer Paddington fans exciting and fun new ways to engage with the brand. We also look forward to launching Paddington’s very first ice show on time to celebrate his 60th Anniversary in 2018 and to announce many more events and activities around Paddington as part of this long term partnership in Germany.”

Michael Mack, CEO of MackMedia, explained: “More than 235 years ago, my family declared its goal to provide people unforgettable moments. Since then, the company motto has been “The wide world is my field”. My family always strives to reach even greater heights. Europa-Park tries to expand what it has to offer at all times. In today’s era of digital disruption, one of our success factors is still being flexible and adaptable. Thinking about how to define “digitization” in the context of Europa-Park and MackMedia, I would tend to say that it´s about creating a digital world of adventure which delivers emotional moments visitors have known and appreciated from Europa-Park.”

He added: “Together with Paddington and the support of the team from The Copyrights Group we will continue to build on our expertise to create these unforgettable moments at Europa-Park as well as with a nationwide ice show later in 2018. We are looking forward to working closely with The Copyrights Group to make Europa-Park the German home of Paddington.”

 

About Paddington
For almost 60 years, British-born writer Michael Bond has been entertaining children and families all over the world with his stories about Paddington, the bear from Darkest Peru famous for his love of marmalade. Since the first book, A Bear Called Paddington, was published by HarperCollins in 1958, a further 14 full-length novels and countless other formats have been published. Paddington’s adventures have been adapted several times for television and at the end of 2014 Paddington made his debut onto the big screen. A second Paddington movie, produced by Studiocanal, Paddington 2, is set to launch globally on 10thNovember 2017. In recognition of Paddington’s extraordinary popularity and success, Michael Bond was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) from the Queen for services to children’s literature in 1997 and a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2015.
Today, there are over 150 book titles available in 40 languages and in more than 100 countries, book sales are in excess of 35 million. The PADDINGTON DVD released in 2015 was the fastest and strongest selling DVD of 2015 in the UK. Paddington has a growing online presence with over 600 thousand Facebook fans and over 20 thousand Twitter followers.
In 2016 Copyrights Group was acquired by the global media company Vivendi.
Follow Paddington on Twitter at @paddingtonbear
Like Paddington’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/PaddingtonBear/
©P&Co. Ltd./SC 2017
Licensed on behalf of Studiocanal S.A.S by Copyrights Group