You'd have to be stuck writhing in a bear trap to have a remotely acceptable excuse to miss this one, and even then it'd be well worth eating your own leg off to be there. Here's the deal as we know it:

Wellington
13-16 November
Town Hall/Civic Centre
This is the ONLY Massive Black event anywhere in the world for 2008! What that means is that there'll be people to network with from all over the world.

Pricing TBA

There'll be all the top artists from Weta in 2D, 3D, animation etc. Big companies like Valve, Bungie, Weta, etc. etc. will likely be RECRUITING onsite, so bring ten copies of your Portfolio. Everyone who is anyone in the NZ and Australian CG industries will be there, not to mention that there'll be big shots from all over the world.

It hasn't been officially announced yet but it's looking pretty certain

I heard about this today, lets hope it happens. And Ill stay away from the bear country until then!

I AM SO THERE!!!!! I've always wanted to go to one of these ever since i saw footage from insomnia.

i just gotta get my reel finished before then.If Jason Chan is there im going to confess my love for him.

That is awesome, I'm so there.

This is certainly an event not to be missed. They are talking about it on conceptart.org on different threads... (just google it).

Here is an EXAMPLE ONLY of a Massive Black workshop - thanks to Visionspring for this link (she'll be attending the workshop in Welly in November and you'll probably be able to read about her experience back on her forum cgnz ) -

MASSIVE BLACK previous workshop

I got a taste of this when I saw Jason Manley speak at AnimFX last year (in Wellington) and went to his workshop. I saw a thread on the conceptart.org forums and Jason talked about how he felt NZ was the perfect place for this upcoming workshop (after experiencing NZ)... it seems he was impressed with the hospitality - well done to us then!!

If you're an artist, this event is not to be missed.

wow i love to get to chat to Andrew Jones, hes like a modern digital Leonardo.

I'm so happy *sniff*

Bigger than the Pope, I tells ya...

Dates have been confirmed! 13 - 16th November - prices still tba.

Thanks, first post updated.

Its at Town hall in Welly wood, ive also herd from other mates that the other workshops in the past are quite pricey, like 500-700 range. But cant wait and will hopefully be going.

I'm hoping it won't be much more than $300 - they've said the ticket prices will be a fair bit lower than usual on account of majority of attendees having to book some pretty expensive flights. We shall see!

$300 would be about right. I'm seriously hoping the $500 price tags weren't USD or something equally shocking.

Just looked and in the past tickets have been $500 - 600 USD.

How do we interpret that? We're fubar.

augh, hope they do group deals or something. I'm there anyway, but it'd be nice not to have to prostitute myself to be there.

The dates for the ConceptArt.Org International Art and Design Workshop in Wellington are set.

November 13, 14, 15, 16 2008.