Conventions All Report Record Attendance

All the main tabletop gaming conventions have announced record breaking attendance again this year. UK Games Expo had 21,700 unique attendees in June, Origins had 18,648 (interestingly not leapfrogging UKGE as it has the last few years), and Gen Con boasted "more than 60,000" unique attendees. Last year, it had 60,819, but they haven't given a precise figure this year. Here's the current chart of the four major tabletop conventions as it stands.

UKGE 2018


[TABLE="class: grid, width: 500, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD]Convention[/TD]
[TD]Unique Attendees[/TD]
[TD]Turnstile[/TD]
[TD]Exhibitors[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Gen Con 2018[/TD]
[TD]"over 60K"*[/TD]
[TD]223,000[/TD]
[TD]520+[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Essen Spiel 2017[/TD]
[TD]unknown[/TD]
[TD]174,000[/TD]
[TD]900+[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]UK Games Expo 2018[/TD]
[TD]21,700[/TD]
[TD]39,000[/TD]
[TD]400+[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Origins Game Fair 2018[/TD]
[TD]18,648[/TD]
[TD]70,765[/TD]
[TD]300+[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Pax Unplugged 2017[/TD]
[TD]unknown[/TD]
[TD]45,000[/TD]
[TD]unknown[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
*Last year was 60,819

While Gen Con's 2018 figures are unclear, last year it has 60,817 unique attendees, 201,852 turnstile, and 500+ exhibitors. This year, it's attendance announcement says there was a record number of 4-day badge sales, +16% Saturday badges, and +60% Sunday badges.

Gen Con this year and last year expanded into the nearby Lucas Oil Stadium.

Essen Spiel comes later this year, at the end of October. It typically has a lower turnstile than Gen Con, and does not release unique attendees figures.

Turnstile includes multiple entries from the the same badge holder -- so if you have a four day badge and walk in and out of the convention hall 10 times in that period, you are counted 10 times for turnstile figures. Unique attendees, on the other hand, counts the number of individuals who purchased badges/tickets.

Conventions which don't focus exclusively on tabletop games tend to be bigger, especially those which include comic books (Italy's Lucca Comics & Games dwarfs all of these).

Here's a look at Gen Con's attendance figures going all the way back to the 1970s. As can be seen, there's been meteoric growth since 2010. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

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[Matt S1]

Turnstile is so pointless. How many times someone goes outside the facility to eat or whatever? Really? Essen clearly started using that as some kind of weird measure once they saw Gen-Con attendance surpass theirs. Also explains why they don't want their ticket sales to be public.

 

[Zarithar]

Should think about including conventions like PAX which also has a pretty large tabletop presence.

 

[Morrus]

Turnstile is so pointless. How many times someone goes outside the facility to eat or whatever? Really?

Footfall is a useful measure. It measures traffic rather than attendance, but that's not a pointless figure.

Essen clearly started using that as some kind of weird measure once they saw Gen-Con attendance surpass theirs. Also explains why they don't want their ticket sales to be public.

Gen Con's turnstile is higher than theirs, too, so that theory doesn't work out.

 

[Morrus]

Should think about including conventions like PAX which also has a pretty large tabletop presence.

I'm just tracking tabletop gaming conventions, and the four main ones at that. Video game and comic book conventions (even those with tabletop presence) dwarf tabletop conventions. Lucca Comics & Games, for example had an attendance of round 500K in 2016. Comic Con has around 200K.

 

[Matt S1]

Actually it does work out because Gen-Con never used to post turnstile until Essen started doing it.

Would love to hear how "footfall" is usefull?

 

[Matt S1]

PAX Unplugged, which is just tabletop games. First year was in 2017 and it was great for it's first year. Felt about the same size as ORIGINS.

 

[Morrus]

PAX Unplugged, which is just tabletop games. First year was in 2017 and it was great for it's first year. Felt about the same size as ORIGINS.

I’ll see if I can dig up some attendance figures next time.

Edit - apparently they don’t give out those figures.

 

[TwoSix]

Should think about including conventions like PAX which also has a pretty large tabletop presence.

PAX Unplugged had about 45K turnstile last year, which isn't bad since it was the first one. It's also entirely devoted to tabletop.

 

[Morrus]

PAX Unplugged had about 45K turnstile last year, which isn't bad since it was the first one. It's also entirely devoted to tabletop.

Oh, cool. Where did you find that? My Google fu failed me!