Licensing event company X Tracks Licensing Summits and pop culture convention Anime NYC are launching a one-day, B2B-only licensing market to help the industry tap into anime and manga’s soaring popularity.

The event is aimed at helping licensing companies better understand the “Asian entertainment wave” that’s sweeping the industry right now, and to help them do business, Steven Ekstract, co-founder of X Tracks Licensing Summit, tells Kidscreen. Ekstract is a longtime licensing industry vet who recently co-wrote the book Brand Licensing for Dummies. 

The wave he’s talking about goes beyond just anime and manga, and includes K-pop music, Korean culture and even Chinese media (last year’s blockbuster feature film Ne Zha 2 came from China), he notes, all topics that will be explored at the summit.

The Anime NYC and X Tracks Licensing Summit will take place on August 20 at the Javits Convention Center in New York (the home of Toy Fair), at the same time as the Anime NYC fan event. The summit will include panels and networking opportunities with companies such as VIZ Media (the manga/anime company), licensing agency Striker Entertainment (it licenses Domo-Kun, the mascot of Japan’s pubcaster NHK), manga publisher Kodansha and licensed apparel manufacturers BioWorld (Dragon Ball) and Mad Engine (Pokémon).

Unlike X Tracks’ other events, which sell tickets for consumers to attend, this event is strictly B2B only. Ekstract says he wants to avoid a situation where fans start creating buzz about products that might not hit shelves for another 18 months. Companies can sign up to attend through the event’s website. Ekstract is launching the summit because LeftField Media, the organizers of Anime NYC, reached out about wanting to expand beyond its existing fan event and connect with the B2B market. Back when he launched his summits in 2022, Ekstract says licensees didn’t see the appeal of anime and manga, but now the genre is becoming impossible for them to ignore.

Ekstract has grown his summits business from one a year to four in 2026, including this one. Previous X Tracks events have included a fashion summit with FIT during New York Fashion Week and an event focused on forging new CP opportunities at the Bentonville Film Festival. “Our raison d’être is to help the licensing community to understand how the trends are going in licensing, how fast culture is changing and to help them do business,” he says.

Image courtesy of X Tracks and Anime NYC.