BAFTA Games Awards to expand

The 2007 British Academy Video Games Awards will be held on October 23 at a new venue to accommodate around three times the number of guests who attended last year. The new venue--Battersea Evolution, in Battersea Park, London--can seat more than 2,000. Last year almost 700 people were at the ceremony at the Round House in Camden.

BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, hosts annual awards for the film, television, and video game industries. Last year, the two main parts of the London Games Festival--GDC London and the London Games Summit--also took place at the BAFTA headquarters in central London.

This year's show will be bigger and better than the last, according to BAFTA head of awards Anne-Marie Flynn, "Last year we mounted the most highly attended awards in the industry and this year will be even bigger. We are very excited about putting on a really visually arresting awards show in 2007."

Academy chairman Hilary Bevan Jones added, "The art form of the video game has truly come of age and the Academy could not be prouder to recognise its creative and technical practitioners."