Festival delegates can expect the usual surreal and ironic mix of quaint Eastern Canadian charm and heavy tech-talk that has become the trademark of nextMEDIA, Oct. 22-25 in Charlottetown, PEI. Aside from a diverse assortment of sessions and panels, the new media fest will feature five keynote speakers over the three days.

Formerly the Baddeck International New Media Festival, presented annually by the Atlantic Digital Media Festival Society, the event was sold to the Banff Television Foundation this past spring. Reel Media’s Berni Wood is exec producing the festival.

‘We’ve got a terrific lineup of keynote speakers with exceptional backgrounds in interactive content,’ says Wood. ‘I think the names we have exemplify new media and creativity at its best.’

First up is Curtis Wong, Microsoft group manager of next media research, who will discuss Context, Content and Creativity for Next Media, followed by Ashley Highfield, BBC director of new media, who will explore Adventures in Integrated Content.

Sulake Labs CEO and managing director Timo Soininen, will present an address called It’s the Persistent Thing, while Dave Winer, writer of Scripting News – the longest currently running weblog on the net – will discuss the Democratization of News (and Everything Else). Also scheduled to deliver a keynote is Wall Street Journal technology columnist Kara Swisher, author of There Must be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL/Time-Warner Debacle and the Quest for a Digital Future.

There will also be a number of concurrent seminars, divided into four categories – commerce, entertainment, factual and learning – featuring panelists such as Marble Media’s Mark Bishop (discussing E-Health), Phase 5’s Arnie Guha (online audience analytics), the CBC’s Mark Hyland (delivering the sports experience) and Rae Hull (user-generated content), as well as other new media experts from around the globe.

The popular CyberPitch competition will return, as will A Deal in a Day – the 24-hour international coproduction challenge.

Wood says organizers expect about 300 delegates to take part in nextMEDIA, which would be a festival high. She adds that Brudenell, PEI, the host town of last year’s fest, couldn’t handle the number of participants the festival will draw this year.

Obviously looking for more than just technical dialogue and networking ops, attendees may come for the insight but stay for the perks of the delegate pass, such ass the lobster dinner and annual masquerade ball.

Host sponsor for the event is Technology PEI, where Wood sat as director of film and new media for several years. She says TechPEI will continue with the festival as long as it remains in P.E.I., adding that nextMEDIA will call Charlottetown home for at least the next few years.

-www.banffmedia.com/nextmedia