This years festival takes place from Sun 12 – Fri 17 Nov in venue and our online offering will be available online from Sat 18 Nov – Thu 30 Nov.

Family Day takes place on Sun 12 Nov.
Animation Connections Conference takes place on Wed 15 Nov.
The Animation Nation Forum and the Marketplace take place on Thu 16 Nov.

Sunday & Friday of the festival are aimed at more of a general public audience who may only want to attend one event and miss out on tickets Mon-Thu due to passholders. Passholder ticket allocations for Sun & Fri will be very limited on these days so we highly advise passholders to arrange their trip around the Mon-Thu programming.

Manchester Animation Festival 2023 will be in-venue from 12-17 Nov 2023. The festival’s core venue will be HOME, with other events taking place at Manchester Central Library, The Anthony Burgess Foundation, The Bridgewater Hall, Leonardo Hotel, Odeon Great Northern, Lock 91 and Brickhouse Social.

For information about the venues accessibility please see our access pages here.

Submissions for MAF 2023 are now closed sorry! Submissions for MAF 2024 will open after this years edition, stay tuned in November for updates on opening dates.

Yes! Whilst we are returning to MAF in venue, we don’t want to leave behind the audiences that loved our online output the past three years.
This years online offering will be available online from Sat 18 Nov – Thu 30 Nov and will consist of a selection of shorts films playing at the festival, along with a selection of Q&A’s and Masterclasses; some of which are events recorded during the in-person festival and some of which are exclusive to online audiences!

Access to the online programme will be available for anyone with a Festival Pass, an Online Only Pass, and single tickets will be available too.
Whether you enjoy experiencing the best animation films on the big screen or from the comfort of your own home we hope to be able to provide a MAF that suits you!

Tickets and passes will go on sale following our programme launch on Tue 26 Sep. Friends of MAF will get a 48 hour pre-sale access on Wed 27 Sep, then tickets and passes will be on general sale from Fri 29 Sep at 12 noon.

Pass prices and types for MAF 2023 are as follows:

Full Festival Pass – Access to all MAF events, ANF events and Animation Connections Conference.

£180 // £150 conc (proof required prior to purchase)

Full Festival Day Pass – Access to all MAF, ANF or EA events on a given day.

£50 // £40 conc

MAF Pass – Access to all MAF events (and two ANF events).

£110 // £90 conc

MAF Film Pass – Access to 5 film screenings throughout the festival. 

£40 // £35 conc 

MAF Online Pass – Gives access to all online events. 

£50 // £40 conc

ANF Pass – Access to all Animation Nation Forum events.

£100 // £75 early bird // £75 conc (proof required prior to purchase)

Since we founded in 2015 our event has grown tremendously! As it has we have added additional events to focus on certain aspects of animation. Before you buy passes or tickets, here is a bit more information about what our event offers to know a bit more about the event and to help you make the right choice.

MAF – Manchester Animation Festival: for animated film fans and people who want to explore the behind the scenes magic of animation. Packed with panels, masterclasses and pivoted around our international screening competition of shorts, features and immersive works. MAF also has lots of social events, pitching and portfolio review opportunities and much much more.

ANF – Animation Nation Forum: for animation professionals looking to get to grips the inside scoop on the business of animation. Dedicated to sharing all aspects of animation business, from non-broadcast to big budget features if you’re a studio or if you work for a studio, if you’re senior or finding your feet this event is accessible to all wanting to find out more as we showcase the global animation industry.

ACC – Animation Connections Conference (Formerly Educating Animators): A practical space for people wanting to bridge the gap between education and industry and exploring exciting ways we can ensure a bright future for animation through talks, networking and discussions.

The MAF Market is free for all delegates to attend so come down and meet some of the great and the good from the world of animation.

You can find out more of what each part of the festival entails by viewing our schedule.

We always aim to make MAF as affordable and accessible as possible, however due to the current cost of living crisis many of our suppliers, venues and delivery partners have increased their fees significantly (some even double). Upon an audit of our pricing we found that we hadn’t increased the rates of our passes since 2016. In light of the two factors above, we slightly increased pass costs to ensure that MAF can still operate as it always has done without a negative financial and mental health impact to our staff.

The festival recognises the subjective nature of cinema and that people can have very different, and sometimes very challenging, responses to films. We do our very best to ensure that our audience have the information they need to make the right choices for them. We have trigger warnings on every programme which needs them. These are based on the Trigger Warning Guidance issued by The Whole Picture Toolkit as well as some more we have added.

To find the trigger warnings, simply go to the event in the schedule and read the copy.

We hope that those that need this information find it useful!

Whilst we are limited in what we can legally enforce now, we kindly ask that all attendees read and adhere to our Community Agreement as part of our terms and conditions. Whilst we cannot implement and enforce rules, we expect all of our attendees to respect those who wish to wear masks and limit social interactions due to fears over their health.

We’d love to have you with us! If your company would like to take a table out at our marketplace, or even better support us a sponsor, simply email dan@manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk and he’ll provide you with a little more information!

If you’d like to find out about our group booking discounts and bespoke options, please email boxofffice@manchesteranimationfestival.co.uk.

Please do so as soon as possible as group bookings will be much harder to facilitate once passes are launched and space is filling up. We advise you email us in September or earlier ideally. Leaving requests into October reduce the chances as pass levels run low and some educational finance departments can’t work fast enough to clear invoices before the festival in November.

Check out our access information here.

https://stripe.com/gb/privacy

Most of the content will go live on Sat 18 Nov. Many of the events will be pre-recorded so you can view them at your leisure during the festival. Do check each individual page for their availability window.

Once you have ordered your ticket, you will see a “Watch Now” button. This button will become active when the content becomes available. Once you hit watch now, you have 48 hours to complete your viewing of the programme or event.

If you’ve ordered a program that includes a livestream, simply navigate to the Q&A and then click “Enter Livestream” at the designated time. There is a countdown clock on the livestream window to let you know when it will start.

All short film content screened at MAF is run through state-of-the-art DRM security with forensic watermarking.

DRM prevents users from downloading, copying, redistributing, or converting content to ensure streams only play back on trusted devices with a valid session.

All online talks/Q&As/masterclasses will be available to our international audiences.

All films are geolocked and can only be viewed in the UK & Northern Ireland, unless otherwise stated. The geolocked films are due to distribution rights in other territories and filmmakers wishes.

Please see the online help through eventive or launch their live chat.