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

Convention	Unique Attendees	Turnstile	Exhibitors
Gen Con 2018	"over 60K"*	223,000	520+
Essen Spiel 2017	unknown	174,000	900+
UK Games Expo 2018	21,700	39,000	400+
Origins Game Fair 2018	18,648	70,765	300+
Pax Unplugged 2017	unknown	45,000	unknown

*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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[GMMichael]

Thank you, Critical Role.

Thank you, international relations.

 

[Rygar]

Any rationale for that? It's not like its changing venue or anything.

There's a number of factors that have potential to effect GenCon next year...

1. MaRo's push into far left politics and his using Magic the Gathering as a vehicle. This carries strong risk of alienating a huge percentage of their customer base, and since Mtg is a product whose success depends on customer base size, since it can't be played without a minimum number of people in many events, it has a lot of potential to cause the product to largely crash.

2. The high probability that said push will carry over to D&D, same company so it's reasonable to assume that we'll soon see D&D become a vehicle. Anita's involvement with the board gaming side is a good example.

3. The events this year at GenCon with an alleged assault of a youtuber by a left wing political activist will make some unknown number of people rethink whether or not they want to attend, especially if no action is taken to redress the issue. GenCon didn't help itself by trying to ignore the whole thing either. All of this connected back to WOTC since its product lines were the battleground that ignited the event.

4. The events like WorldCon, the whole Larry Correia incident at Origins, GenCon and Anita, they're all signaling that conventions are left wing politics vehicles. Even if we assume that everything is either left or right, that's 50% of the customer base they're pushing out. But the left tends to push out centrist opinions too, and Gallup pegs the left around 26% the last time I looked, so they could be signaling they're left wing politics vehicles to 74% of the customers.

5. Next year is going to see the start of the election battle lines being drawn. It's *very* likely that the political war is going to heat up next summer in the U.S., and since conventions are becoming political battlegrounds for some bizarre reason, it's a fair bet that we'll see all of the U.S. ones melt down over the course of the next two years.

It all comes down to one simple truth. You cannot be a political activism vehicle and a mass market product. You have to be one or the other.

 

[zedturtle]

< snip >

You're absolutely right. Gen Con's message of inclusivity is becoming stronger and more clear: I had lots more players this year who were women, non-binary, identified as somewhere along the LGBTQ+ spectrum and/or were people of color. And you know what? It was awesome! I always have a great team running games, but it's especially awesome when you get to include folks who might, at one time, thought gaming wasn't for them because of some noise they heard on the internet.

 

[danir]

Yep, really like the Gencon improvements - a Great event to be at for EVERYBODY.
And I also think that WotC is doing a great job at promoting diversity and inclusivity. You can see it is a also a great Business decision, as their sales just skyrocket.
So I think, both from a humane / Moral side, and a business side, Gencon and WotC are doing great steps forward and are rewarded for their awesomeness.

 

[Nagol]

There's a number of factors that have potential to effect GenCon next year...

1. MaRo's push into far left politics and his using Magic the Gathering as a vehicle. This carries strong risk of alienating a huge percentage of their customer base, and since Mtg is a product whose success depends on customer base size, since it can't be played without a minimum number of people in many events, it has a lot of potential to cause the product to largely crash.

2. The high probability that said push will carry over to D&D, same company so it's reasonable to assume that we'll soon see D&D become a vehicle. Anita's involvement with the board gaming side is a good example.

3. The events this year at GenCon with an alleged assault of a youtuber by a left wing political activist will make some unknown number of people rethink whether or not they want to attend, especially if no action is taken to redress the issue. GenCon didn't help itself by trying to ignore the whole thing either. All of this connected back to WOTC since its product lines were the battleground that ignited the event.

4. The events like WorldCon, the whole Larry Correia incident at Origins, GenCon and Anita, they're all signaling that conventions are left wing politics vehicles. Even if we assume that everything is either left or right, that's 50% of the customer base they're pushing out. But the left tends to push out centrist opinions too, and Gallup pegs the left around 26% the last time I looked, so they could be signaling they're left wing politics vehicles to 74% of the customers.

5. Next year is going to see the start of the election battle lines being drawn. It's *very* likely that the political war is going to heat up next summer in the U.S., and since conventions are becoming political battlegrounds for some bizarre reason, it's a fair bet that we'll see all of the U.S. ones melt down over the course of the next two years.

It all comes down to one simple truth. You cannot be a political activism vehicle and a mass market product. You have to be one or the other.

Who/what is MaRo?

 

[ccs]

It all comes down to one simple truth. You cannot be a political activism vehicle and a mass market product. You have to be one or the other.

Have you been to GenCon? Trust me, it's a mass market product.

 

[Morrus]

Wow. Did someone wade in to stink the place up or not? [MENTION=6756765]Rygar[/MENTION], don't post in the thread again. Everyone else, don't engage in the political turd drop.

 

[Von Ether]

I just wonder if those numbers are actually more than the 70' or 80s when D&D was at its original height or if its taking into account the population increase from the last 20 some years? I get out of the house quite a bit but outside of going to a gaming stores I dont meet many gamers.

That maybe a bit relative since in the Midwest, you don't find may hockey fans and snowboarding isn't a thing until you get much closer to the Rockies.

In average US workplace, everything else is going to take a backseat to football, church and golf. Even baseball is on the decline.

And I know what you mean by gamers, but outside these electronic halls, gamer means video gamer. And those type of gamers have been getting thicker on the ground over the last few years.

I have seen two big changes, that we see more D&D in the pop culture zeitgeist and if you are in a group of people going ga-ga over the Expanse, Star Wars or GoT, then they are less like to negatively judge you about table top RPGs (remember when the common prefix was "C" as in Computer RPGs?)

And I see more of those guys dipping in their toes for a try.

 

[dragoner]

GenCon is huge, and getting bigger since I first went in '87. I know a bunch of 1st timers who went, and all had a great time saying there was way more to do, or that could be done in the few days, so that they are going back again. Indianapolis loves, and I mean loves GenCon (one of the funniest moments was at Ram brewery when the bartender asked someone if they wanted "to go beers" and the patrons responded with a mystical look on their faces as it was explained that you can drink beer outside on the streets of Indy, because there is no open container law). If anything, I could see GenCon expanding into more days, and more space.

Parking is a breeze, and everyone was super chill, in a very relaxed atmosphere overall.

 

[Rhylthar]

That's helpful - where did you find that? The figures I've found for 2017 said 174,000 turnstile, and "900+" exhibitors.

Local german newspaper...I´m living in this area and I´m going to Essen for the last...20 (?) years.