FFXIII Premiere Party to showcase new characters and release date?

We've known for a good bit of time that Square-Enix's plans for a release date for Final Fantasy XIII has fallen within the realm of Winter 2009 for Japan and Spring 2010 for North America and Europe. However we may just be getting an official date (at least the Japanese version anyway), as well as some new information of the new characters that were hinted at at the recent Gamescom conference in Cologne, Germany.

The FFXIII Premiere Party location (as shown in pic) has been finalized and will take place on September 8th. Stay tuned for more information!