LIMA held its Seventh Annual Licensing Market on November 5 in the Bayerische Hof Hotel in Munich. Some 40  exhibitors presented their licensing rights from various areas of interest in a prestigious environment. Disney, Turner, ZDF, Pro7 Sat1,Super RTL, Studio 100 Media and many more.  Among the new companies were Lief! Burda, Random House, PEZ,Dependable Rights as well as Tabaluga Enterprises. The German rock star Peter Maffay had repurchased the rights to his little green dragon just a few months ago and personally presented the entire marketing programme. Once again, the companies were able to use the Cinema Lounge for these distinguished presentations, which were very well received by the guests. “As far as the retail side is concerned, all the big names were there”, says a happy Heike Winner, Managing Director of the German Lima representative office. The 1,000 guests of the well-established licensing show included various toy associations like idee & spiel, Toys ‘R‘ Us, real, Dirk Rossmann, Karstadt, Ernsting’s Family, My toys, Tedi, Tacco, Müller and many more.

As in previous years, the highlight of the evening was the dinner party with the presentation of the Lima Awards in seven categories: Licensing theme of the year is “Die Biene Maja”. Studio 100 Media, their rights marketer, was doubly pleased because they were also nominated as licensor of the year. The award for being the best licensee went to Egmont Ehapa. Product of the year was the “Sorgenfresser Plüsch” created by Schmidt Spiele. Müller was able to round up most of the votes as best retail partner. The winner of the “promotion of the year” competition was “McDonald’s Lesehits: Books with Happy Meals”. And the Brand/VIP Sport Brand of the year was awarded to the FC Bayern München soccer team.

The next Lima event, the “Tag der Lizenzen” in Cologne will be on April 2, 2014 in the Maritim Hotel, to be followed by a new location.