EPX Studios, the University of Iowa’s student organization for all things video games, is bringing a little more gaming and animation culture to the school this weekend with its second animation and gaming conference EPXcon.

Video game and animation professionals from a variety of companies are coming to speak at the two-day conference, which will take place in Art Building West on Friday and Saturday, with the first speakers starting at 3:30 p.m. and 1 p.m. respectively.

“For the conference, we bring in professionals from the video-game and animation industry to give students an inside look at how the industry operates,” said Sean Robinson, the artistic director at EPX Studio. “The professionals give us a history of how they themselves got into the industry and examples of their work.”

Each of the speaker’s presentations will include an example of their programming as well as demos so attendees can learn industry tricks of the trade.

There will be five speakers from a variety of companies at the conference including Laika Studios (ParaNorman), Disney Interactive, Gazillion (Marvel Heroes), Digital Tutors, and Polytron (Fez).

“We want to give the Midwest this kind of exposure. We know there are talented people in the area who are passionate about gaming,” says Robinson, “We want students to get pumped up for the possibility of doing this as a career.”