July 26 - August 1 global agenda: Summer X-Games in California

(AFP PHOTO / HECTOR MATA)

Next week's selection features extreme sports in California, animation in Hong Kong and in Oakland, California, a celebration of rock in Japan and an arts festival in Edinburgh, among other events.

Jonas Brothers international tour begins
July 27
Dallas, Texas, USA

Teen heartthrobs the Jonas Brothers are set to make a multi-continent summer concert tour with guest Demi Lovato, beginning July 27 in Dallas, Texas, and continuing through North America, Latin America, and Europe throughout the summer and fall. The brothers will tour in support of the sequel to their film Camp Rock, which has reached more than 137 million viewers. That movie's soundtrack has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide and spent ten weeks in the top ten on the US Billboard 200 chart. The Jonas Brothers' previous tour was among the top-grossing concert tours in 2009, with more than 1.5 million attendees and sold-out shows on three continents.
http://www.teamjonas.com

Summer X-Games
July 29 - August 1
Los Angeles, California, USA

Three days of extreme sports action at the biggest extreme sports event: BMX, skateboarding, motocross, and even rally car racing. Action starts at 5pm PST (2pm EST, 10pm BST, 6am Japan) and continues until around midnight each day.
http://espn.go.com/action/xgames

Edinburgh Art Festival
July 29-September 5
Various locations in Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

Created in 2004, the Edinburgh Art Festival is comprised of over 100 exhibitions ranging from shows by major international artists to new, provocative contemporary works by leading British artists. The month-long festival highlights a program of events in traditional and non-traditional settings in over 50 locations throughout the Scottish city of Edinburgh.
http://www.edinburghartfestival.com

12th Ani-Com & Games Hong Kong
July 30-August 3
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

A new competition aimed at young designers and the presence of the international gaming giant Nintendo are being touted as the main draw cards for this year's Ani-Com and Games fair, with organizers predicting more than 700,000 people will attend the five day event. Ani-Com has positioned itself in behind the likes of the annual Anime Expo in Los Angeles and the Tokyo International Anime Fair in terms of importance to the industries which revolve around animation.
http://www.ani-com-hk

Fuji Rock
July 30 - August 1
Niigata Prefecture, Japan

Set on the Naeba Ski Resort, the Fuji Rock Festival is a favorite for its picturesque location. More than 100,000 people attend the annual festival, where they can watch music on seven different stages, the largest of which can accommodate an audience of 40,000 people. The 2010 festival will feature Muse, Them Crooked Vultures, Roxy Music, Massive Attack, and more than 100 other artists, most of them from the UK, the US, and Japan.
http://www.fujirockfestival.com

"Pixar: 25 years of animation"
July 31 - September 1
Oakland Museum of California, USA

To celebrate Pixar's 25th anniversary, Oakland Museum, a few kilometers away from the company's headquarters in Emeryville, California, hosts a special exhibit featuring over 500 works by artists taken from popular animated films such as Ratatouille, WALL-E, Toy Story, Up, Finding Nemo and even recently released Toy Story 3, from July 31. Previously put together in 2005 for New York's MoMA, this exhibition is ending its 5-year world tour (Australia, Japan, Finland, Scotland, Korea) in California, with new works unseen anywhere else from Toy Story 3, among others.
http://museumca.org