{"id":415,"date":"2023-06-04T19:58:11","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T18:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/?p=415"},"modified":"2023-06-20T12:08:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T11:08:27","slug":"uk-games-expo-soars-to-record-32000-visitors-to-cement-post-covid-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/04\/uk-games-expo-soars-to-record-32000-visitors-to-cement-post-covid-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Games Expo soars to record 32,000 visitors to cement post-Covid recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The UK’s largest hobby gaming convention, UK Games Expo<\/a>, has fully emerged from the shadow of the Coronavirus crisis by posting a record 32,000 visitors at this year’s event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UKGE revealed the provisional figures just after the event wrapped up today (Sunday June 4), after three days of board game and roleplaying game demos, displays, trading and seminars across a trio of massive halls at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That visitor total blows away UKGE’s previous record of 25,704 posted in 2019, before the event was forced to pause in 2020 due to the Covid-19 outbreak, being replaced for a year by a virtual convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitor numbers were muted upon reopening in 2021 at about 10,600, the expo’s lowest turnout since 2015, but recovered to about 23,100 last year, a couple of thousand people short of its pre-pandemic high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visitor figures for 2023 are almost ten times higher than the roughly 3,500 people who attended the expo a decade ago, before its move to the NEC Hilton hotel in 2015 and later expansion to include the NEC exhibition centre proper in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UKGE said the total number of attendees for 2023 across all of the three days, rather than individual visitors, reached 52,000 this year – another record breaker, beating the 45,000 recorded in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Huge draws at this year’s event included a showcase for Disney’s upcoming trading card game Lorcana<\/a>, which attracted huge queues at the Ravensburger booth all weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Kickstarter success Earth from Inside Up Games<\/a> also caused long queues at the booth, with people keen to try out the plant-themed tableau builder and pick up retail copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Games Workshop’s huge Warhammer display at the very front of Hall 1 was also frequently swarming with people, some of whom had the chance to debut the upcoming 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000<\/a> due for release later this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The UK’s largest hobby gaming convention, UK Games Expo, has fully emerged from the shadow of the Coronavirus crisis by posting a record 32,000 visitors at this year’s event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21,153,66,121,65,152],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-21","tag-attendance","tag-convention","tag-uk","tag-uk-games-expo","tag-ukge"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t