Quirino Lab Brings Top Animation Producers to Puerto de la Cruz for Its Second Edition

If you stroll past the sun-drenched terraces of Lago Martiánez this October, you might spot more than just swimmers. Tucked away from the usual holiday bustle, a group of the sharpest minds in Ibero-American animation will be deep in conversation, sketching out the next big ideas on napkins between sessions. This is the second edition of Quirino Lab, and it is quietly turning Tenerife into a genuine powerhouse for the animation world.

The event runs from 7 to 10 October 2026, and it marks a deliberate shift from the awards-season glamour of Santa Cruz to the creative calm of Puerto de la Cruz. Organisers describe it as an advanced seminar for executive producers, a space designed for reflection and strategic discussion rather than a classic pitching forum. The goal is ambitious: to professionalise the region's animation industry at its very top level, helping the people who run the studios to adapt to a rapidly changing global market.

A Strategic Retreat, Not a Classroom

Quirino Lab is not about beginners’ workshops. The programme is built for people who already carry the weight of companies on their shoulders. Over four days, the twenty selected participants will step away from their daily pressures and into a structured but open environment. The focus is on sharing what actually works, contrasting decisions, and co-creating solutions with peers who face the same challenges from Mexico City to São Paulo and Madrid.

The 2026 curriculum tackles the issues keeping producers awake at night. Sessions, each running two to three hours and led by international experts, will dive into audiences and digital fragmentation, strategic leadership, innovation in revenue streams, emerging IP and business models, and the unavoidable impact of AI and technological trends. Two immersive formats, guided by facilitators Paloma Aragón and Alby Ojeda, are new additions this year, promising an even more hands-on exchange of ideas.

The Experts Flying In

A strong line-up of international voices will steer the conversations. Confirmed experts include Nic Cabana, Lucas Arechaga, Marcin Sobczak, Garry Yankson, Uttariyo Saha, and Diego Rosner. They bring experience from studios and consultancies that shape global animation, including Claynosaurz, Nexus Studios, Magnific, and WLFG Consulting. For the local Canary Islands scene, having this calibre of mentor walking along the Puerto de la Cruz promenade and sharing meals with participants is a quiet but powerful injection of world-class knowledge.

The twenty participants themselves will be drawn from the 23 countries that make up the Ibero-American community. While the final list of selected producers and their companies has not yet been published, the profile is clear: executive producers with a demonstrable track record in series, features, or shorts, and a genuine commitment to growing the animation sector back home. The application window closed on 29 July 2026, so the chosen group will be announced soon.

Building on a Promising Start

This second edition builds on the momentum of the inaugural Quirino Lab, which took place in November 2025 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. That first gathering brought together 17 professionals from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, and Mexico. The list of companies represented read like a who’s who of rising studios: 3Doubles Producciones, Mono Animation, IntiFX, Mr. Machin, and many others. Crucially, several Tenerife-based studios were already in the room, including 3Doubles and Tinglado Film, proving that the island’s own talent is very much part of this international conversation.

The move to Puerto de la Cruz for 2026 is a significant one. It physically separates the Lab from the main Quirino Awards gala and forum, which remain anchored in Santa Cruz each April. This gives the Lab its own distinct identity, a retreat-like atmosphere where the focus is purely on deep work and lasting connections, with the Atlantic Ocean as a constant backdrop.

Why This Matters for the Canary Islands

It is easy to see a seminar like this as a niche industry event, but its ripple effects on Tenerife are very real. The Cabildo de Tenerife has been strategically backing the Quirino ecosystem for years, and the numbers justify the investment. Animation alone generated around 19 million euros in Tenerife in 2024, accounting for nearly a third of the island’s total audiovisual sector income. Events like Quirino Lab are designed to push that figure higher by making the island an indispensable node in the international animation network.

When executive producers from across Latin America and Europe spend four intensive days on the island, they do not just talk business in a conference room. They experience the local culture, meet Canarian studio heads, and start to see Tenerife as a potential co-production partner or even a second home for future projects. The Lab is a long-term play to consolidate the island’s reputation not just as a beautiful filming location, but as a place where serious creative business gets done.