Spiel Essen sells out for first time as 204,000 attendees set post-Covid record

The world’s biggest board game fair, Spiel Essen, has posted a new post-Covid attendance record amid completely selling out of tickets for the four-day event for the first time in its 41-year history.

About 204,000 people attended this year’s fair in north-west Germany, which closed its doors on Sunday – up around 5.6% compared to the 193,000 who visited the event in 2023.

That attendance remained just shy of the record 209,000 attendance Spiel set in 2019, a figure it was unlikely to equal this year as the event set a daily cap on how many people could be in the halls at one time.

That, combined with the German Unity Day national holiday landing on the Thursday of the show, led to four-day tickets selling out several days before the event began. Thursday and Friday tickets sold out the day before Spiel opened its doors, with Saturday tickets all gone on day one and Sunday tickets also selling out before the end of the show.

The situation caused some consternation from attendees who had arrived without tickets, expecting to be able to pick them up on the doors as in previous years, with each day of the fair seeing clutches of people standing outside the front of the halls holding signs signalling they would like to buy tickets.

Spiel did post on its Facebook page on September 30 recommending people buy tickets online ahead of the show, but there were complaints online and at the event that it had not communicated well enough the potential for a sell-out.

Carol Rapp, managing director of Spiel organiser Merz Verlag, said, “This year, we worked with a ticket quota for the first time to create a pleasant experience for as many people as possible and to comply with safety regulations.

“There could never be more than nearly 50,000 people on-site at the same time. We ensured wide aisles and good walking paths for easy movement in the halls and to the booths.”

Those wide aisles – and the increasing cost of booth space – has also had an impact on exhibitor numbers.

A total of 923 exhibitors showed off games at this year’s Spiel – down from the 935 last year, and well below the roughly 1,200 who showed off games at the fair in 2019.

Three publishers who spoke to BoardGameWire at the event said they were waiting to see if the rising booth costs were entirely down to inflationary impact, or related to the takeover of Spiel by Nürnberg toy fair operator Spielwarenmesse in 2022.

The rising costs already appear to be having an affect on the make-up of the show, with many small and medium-sized publishers deciding to team up to share booth space, while large publishers such as Asmodee, Kosmos and Ravensburger created several sprawling exhibition areas which dominated Hall 6.

Merz Verlag, which runs the annual fair, said in June that an unprecedented number of exhibitors had asked to enlarge their booths for the 2024 event, which had also attracted a significant number of new publishers – leading to the company instituting a waiting list.

Despite that, the fair saw exhibitors from 56 countries show off their games this year, including an expansive showcase from Korea Boardgames and a popular cluster of Japanese publishers including Oink Games, Saashi & Saashi and Itten.

This year’s Spiel also set a record for the area occupied by the event, which was boosted by almost 10% to over 68,500 sq m by fully expanding into previously empty space across Hall 4 and Hall 5. That area is the same as about ten American football fields.

Rapp said, “When we had to open a waiting list in June because we couldn’t immediately accommodate all exhibitors’ requests, we knew that this year there would be more space used again.

“We had to do a lot of puzzle-solving to coordinate the requests for more playing space and the wishes of new exhibitors.

“I am very proud of us as team for tackling this huge task together and, through much communication, managing to offer nearly everyone a spot at Spiel.”

Spiel’s decision to limit daily attendees and maintain the wide aisles initially necessitated by the first post-Covid event were noticeable in the halls, which – while still busy and often slow to traverse – were anecdotally easier to navigate than in prior years, according to multiple regular attendees who spoke to BoardGameWire at the event.

That ease of transit was also potentially aided by Spiel’s excellent app, which provides an interactive hall plan and allows users to search for individual games, designers and publishers to find out their locations in the hall.

Publishers were generally incredibly positive about this year’s event too, despite some telling BoardGameWire they had had to fight hard to secure good positions following a shake-up of how the halls were organised last year.

That reorganisation has seen the fair split into separate segments for children’s, family and light-to-medium games, expert games, tabletop and miniature games, roleplaying games and trading card games, with a mix of small, medium and large booths in each zone.

BoardGameWire reported in June last year that the decision had not gone down universally well with all of the exhibitors, but the general response from booth organisers during both the subsequent fairs has been positivity about the changes.

Yasin Ates, managing director for the German, Austrian and Swiss region at Ravensburger, said, “It was an impressive and successful fair.

“The halls were full, yet it still felt comfortable. It was great to see so many people playing with such enthusiasm.”

He added that Spiel was an important indicator of how a new title for autumn and winter will be received, saying, “This is where we meet the entire scene: the players, who provide direct feedback through conversations and borrowing of the games on site, our trading partners with whom we discuss new products, and of course the designers and colleagues.”

Florian Hess, managing director of Merz Verlag and board member of Spielwarenmesse, said, “This year’s Spiel was a complete success and again shows how closely the team works with the community and how well it copes with the many challenges of a leading global fair.

“The fair is heading in a fantastic direction, and we have great plans ahead to keep Spiel current and appealing for exhibitors and visitors from around the world.”

A statement from Merz Verlag said the team would take a short break before collecting feedback, evaluating responses and beginning planning for 2025.

Next year’s Spiel – the first in which the new owners have control over the dates – is set to take place from October 23 to 26, coinciding with the German school autumn holidays across several regions.