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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[R_J_K75]

Pretty sure the numbers are simply reinforcing that narrative, actually.

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.

 

[Morrus]

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.

Wonder no more! Here are Gen Con’s figures back to the 70s.

 

[AriochQ]

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.

There are sales figures in some of the court filings, and if someone had the inclination they could probably figure it out based on PHB/Basic Set numbers.

Personally, I think D&D is way bigger now. I went to high school in the early 80's and out of about 1000 students, I think there were probably 20 D&D players. It was a pretty small group.

My youngest just graduated last fall from a school of about 850. There are easily 30-50 kids who play D&D fairly consistently.

 

[Morrus]

There are sales figures in some of the court filings, and if someone had the inclination they could probably figure it out based on PHB/Basic Set numbers.

Personally, I think D&D is way bigger now. I went to high school in the early 80's and out of about 1000 students, I think there were probably 20 D&D players. It was a pretty small group.

My youngest just graduated last fall from a school of about 850. There are easily 30-50 kids who play D&D fairly consistently.

We’re talking about convention attendance.

 

[pogre]

I went to GenCon in the early 80s. The event and attendance numbers were not even close. (edit: as I see Morrus has posted).

GenCon felt like a decent sized con when we went. It was still a few hundred folks after all. That dip around '84 was when the Con was at Parkside college if I remember right. Food was a bit of pain that year.

Back in the early-mid 80's the main draw to the vendors was the bargains - not the new releases. I had a buddy buy a ton of Citadel pre-slotta bases miniature blisters for 25 cents a piece in 1984.

 

[Rhylthar]

I did a short research:
Essen 2017 had about 182.000 visitors with 1.100 exhibitors from 51 countries. But Essen is mainly a boardgame fair with roleplaying and table-top just using one hall.
There is the RPC, too...but sadly no numbers of visitors anywhere.

 

[Morrus]

I did a short research:
Essen 2017 had about 182.000 visitors with 1.100 exhibitors from 51 countries. But Essen is mainly a boardgame fair with roleplaying and table-top just using one hall.
There is the RPC, too...but sadly no numbers of visitors anywhere.

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

 

[rknop]

Weird; what happened 1995-2008? I know that AD&D was on the decline in the early 90s, and those were the bad Lorraine Williams years. But 3e came out ca. 2000, and I would have expected a boom then.

 

[VengerSatanis]

I predict 2019 will be the worst attendance GenCon has seen in a long time.

 

[Nagol]

I predict 2019 will be the worst attendance GenCon has seen in a long time.

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