Promised Land Art Festival 2023 Date, Tickets, and First Speakers Announced!


CD PROJEKT RED, the video game development studio behind The Witcher series of games and Cyberpunk 2077, today announced that Promised Land Art Festival will take place September 3rd-6th this year, with Early Bird tickets now available for purchase through the official website.

Aimed at professionals from various creative industries such as film and gaming, Promised Land Art Festival was created to be an opportunity for sharing ideas, networking, and bridging the divide between traditional and digital arts. Lasting four days, the festival will host over 100 hours of activities, including talks, hands-on workshops, live demonstrations, portfolio reviews, masterclasses, networking sessions, as well as Q&As with high-profile creators. The event will once more take place at EC1 Łódź, a renovated and modernized former power plant that now serves as a center of culture and science.

Last year’s Promised Land Art Festival boasted over 850 participants, as well as 58 speakers, with 42 hours of lectures, 31 hours of workshops, 15 hours of life drawing sessions with professional models, and 18 hours of demos taking place during the four-day event. Speakers and participants came from a variety of companies, including 11 bit studios, Bloober Team, People Can Fly, Platige Image, Techland, Ubisoft, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Riot Games, Wizards of the Coast, Guerilla Games, and many more.

See a Recap of Last Year’s Event


First Speakers

The studio today unveiled the first three speakers to take part in the event: Bastien Lecouffe Deharme, Genci Buxheli, and Ben Erdt. More speakers will be unveiled as the event draws nearer.

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme moved from France to the United States in 2010 where he has continued a career dedicated to every aspect of his art, including painting Magic: The Gathering cards, working with his agency on large-scale projects, and developing his graphic novels & role-playing games. Bastien’s artwork can be seen in publications and exhibitions worldwide, including on the cover of the emblematic Spectrum Fantastic art book.

Genci Buxheli is a lead character artist at Eidos Montreal in Montreal, Canada. He joined the company to work on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, where he had the opportunity to create some of the game’s main protagonists and antagonists — as well as supporting cast members. When creating workflows, Genci often finds inspiration from other departments to help speed up and improve the creation process of character modeling and shading.

Ben Erdt has worked in the industry for over 10 years as a character/creature artist and has previously worked on titles such as Killzone: Shadow Fall, Horizon Zero Dawn, its DLC Frozen Wilds, the early stage of Horizon Forbidden West, NVIDIA’s Project Sol, and Love, Death & Robots. He joined Blizzard Entertainment in 2018 and is currently working on Diablo IV as a lead character artist.

Learn More About the Speakers


Tickets for Promised Land Art Festival are available starting today. Early bird tickets available for 2300 PLN are time limited and will be available until June 12th, or while supplies last. Each ticket grants the owner access to all Promised Land events and includes food & drink vouchers, as well as a welcome pack of physical Promised Land goodies. The ticket also encompasses Open Day, a one-day event hosted the day before the festival’s official opening for creative industry enthusiasts.

Buy Promised Land 2023 Tickets


The festival is held under the auspices of Łódź City Council as part of “600 Years of Łódź” (“600 lat Łodzi”) and “EC1 Łódź – The City of Culture” (“EC1 Łódź – Miasto Kultury”) promotional programs. Learn more about the festival on the official website.

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