The world’s biggest board game fair, Spiel Essen, secured a record-breaking 220,000 attendance this year after expanding into a seventh massive hall – while the decision to scrap four-day passes secured a hefty boost to visitor numbers on its often quieter final day.

Spiel’s previous record attendance of 209,000 had stood since 2019, the last year before the Covid-19 pandemic led to the event cancelling its in-person 2020 show.

The recovery since 2020 has been rapid, however, with the event growing from about 93,600 attendees in 2021 to 204,000 last year – the first time the show had completely sold out in its 41-year history.

That sell-out might have seen Spiel break its attendance record were it not for a self-imposed visitor cap, which limited the number of attendees each day to about 50,000 – a measure introduced alongside wider aisles post-pandemic to help visitors move around the often crowded halls more easily.

But another sell-out show this year saw the record finally fall, while exhibitor numbers also rose to 948, up from last year’s 923 and the 935 recorded in 2023.

The generally congested Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the show were joined by a noticeably busier Sunday this year after Spiel made the decision to get rid of four-day tickets – reasoning that many people were buying the whole-show pass but skipping out on the final day.

Spiel Essen managing director Carol Rapp told BoardGameWire while looking out over a busy Hall 6 on the Sunday of the show that it had seen a “huge change” in audience due to the decision.

She said, “One: we have sold nearly 1,000 tickets only for families, which means we have maybe 5,000 people – only families – in here.

“And the other thing is: it’s still crowded. It’s cramped, it’s full of people, it’s full of energy.”

Jesús ‘Chus’ Fuentes, the co-founder of Perro Loko Games – which topped BoardGameGeek’s Spiel Essen preview ahead of the show with heavy interest for Orloj: The Prague Astronomical Clock – told BoardGameWire on the Sunday that the show did feel busier than in previous years.

But he added that the popularity of Orloj, which rapidly sold out of all 1,800 copies the company brought to the show and had a constantly busy demo area, meant he had struggled to get away from the Hall 3 booth to experience other areas of the event.

Roberto Panetta, founder of Gems of Iridescia publisher Rock, Stone & Dice Games, told BoardGameWire his Hall 4 booth was so busy during the event he regretted not doubling the number of demo tables available.

He said, “When I came here for the first time two years ago I came with a handmade prototype, and I was demoing it in the BackerKit booth. Then last year I came back with a pre production sample – same thing, in the BackerKit booth.

“Now that the product’s actually physically available, I’m back with my own kiosk for the first time, and it feels really great to finally have some physical product to sell, because prior to this every show I’ve done over the past three years to promote this game was simply an expense. Now I can actually generate revenue and recoup some of that back.

“[The busyness of Spiel] seems to come in waves. For some reason the Friday, even though it was really busy, the sales weren’t as great, but every other day has been great.

“What I find interesting about the consumer here, because I’m from Canada… in North America customers will come to your booth and see the big shiny thing: they want the all-in deluxe pledge.

“Here, the consumer seems more conscious, and I love it, because they actually want to sit down and play the entire game before they purchase it, and then they purchase it…. and the standard version seems to sell better than deluxe version here. So it’s a great learning.”

Robert Geistlinger, president of US publisher Arcane Wonders, said, “Spiel is the most important fair for us to meet partners from all over the world and make new contacts.

“Especially in the current global situation, this coming together and talking to each other is more important than ever.

“The number of games from all over the world that are being released here for the first time is much higher this year than ever before.

“Everyone uses this show to present their new games because it is so big and delivery here is easier. We have eight new titles with us; normally we release about three at the fair.”

Florian Hess, managing director of Spiel organiser Merz Verlag, added, “I don’t know of any other event that is as strong a springboard for a business’s launch as Spiel.

“I have met exhibitors who started here a few years ago with a small booth and are now occupying several hundred square meters and selling games internationally. Experiencing this kind of B2B rocket launch never ceases to fascinate me.”

While most booth operators BoardGameWire spoke to at this year’s Spiel were positive about the increased visitor numbers and the effect on their sales, several in the notoriously crowded Hall 3 were critical of difficulties caused how many people were constantly trying to shuffle their way through the hall.

That press is caused by the long, narrow dimensions of Hall 3, as well as its status as the home of major publishers such as Germany’s Pegasus Spiele and Feuerland, Czech Games Edition, Stonemaier Games and Devir.

Spiel Essen implemented a shake-up of how its halls were organised two years ago in an attempt to make it easier for visitors to navigate an event which Rapp said at the time had become “a little bit of a mess” after 40 years of growth.

That split the fair 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 – a decision which was initially criticised by some publishers, but seems to have ultimately gone down well.

The shift has created reluctance among some publishers to shift away from Hall 3, however, out of concern some core customers for their games could end up missing their booth if they relocate.

Rapp told BoardGameWire at the show, “It’s really hard to talk someone out of Hall 3. We tried that and offered: ‘Look, there is a wonderful stage in 4, and we will do a four-day program, and it will be beautiful, it will be drawing people into 4. How do you think about moving your stand to Hall 4? You asked me to grow, you know, it’s impossible in three.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, try that – we will see after Spiel’. 

“And now people are more open to that discussion, so I hope that we can find two or three of the, let’s say, bigger players in 3 and ask them to move over. And by doing that, we will release Hall 3 from a lot of stress. So if you want to grow, Hall 4 is the place to be.”

Hall 4 this year was the new home of Spiel Essen’s annual series of panel discussions, with were moved out of the conference area and onto a new 1,000 sq m stage on the main show floor.

Those panels seemed generally well attended the several times BoardGameWire swung past – especially for the more consumer-focused events on show.

Some of the booths closest to the new stage told BoardGameWire they found the extra noise caused by the shows difficult to adjust to – something Rapp said she would look at potential solutions for next year.

This year’s Spiel also featured a show first thanks to Asmodee’s TCG distribution arm Blackfire, which constructed the event’s first two-storey booth – enabling it to host business meetings overlooking the Hall 1 show floor.

Rapp said she had been impressed this year by initiatives like that, as well as by the efforts of both large and small publishers looking to make their booths stand out and “more appealing”.

She said, “What I saw when I went through the halls is that many, many publishers are trying to be more immersive: a little bit more 3D, a little bit more creative in how they present the games.

“One of my highlights is that race car table at Asmodee, that’s wonderful. Or [Asmodee’s] Hobbit pub, that was also very, very wonderful.

“And it’s not only Asmodee, I saw that in many halls – like in Hall 4, there’s Bantam Planet with their saloon-style stand. So we have some more doing that, and that’s what people find really attractive. 

“We have many more smaller exhibitors that also ramp up and step one level higher with their booth design and how they present the games.”

Rapp told BoardGameWire before the show that she had been reluctant to expand the event into Hall 7, but ultimately bowed to the pressure of the huge number of applications this year.

She added that one of the most asked questions of her was whether the show would now look to expand into the final hall at Messe Essen, Hall 8, which was used this year as an area for people to queue while waiting for the show floor to open.

Rapp told BoardGameWire at the end of this year’s show that it was “still her feeling” that she would prefer to keep Spiel to its current footprint across seven halls for a couple of years – but added that there could be scope to expand its RPG artists areas into Hall 1A.

She said, “It feels a little bit like a dungeon, but a dungeon is quite a cool place for RPGs. So maybe that could be a good idea. That area is growing again, and it was growing from last year to this year.”

Rapp added that the fair also now has access to the more than 2,800 sq m Grugahalle, which this year hosted a world-record breaking simultaneous game of Catan featuring almost 1,200 players to mark the game’s 30th anniversary.

She said, “If anybody in the industry has a specific event they want to run, we can offer that room, we can make it happen. I heard about some anniversaries next year, and the year after – so maybe we will see something again.”

Spiel Essen is set to return between October 22 and 25 next year.

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