Earlier this year we found that Origins Game Fair had maintained its spot as the world's 4th largest tabletop gaming convention (UK Games Expo stuck at #3); now it's time for Gen Con to weigh in as 2019's attendance figures are revealed!
Gen Con had a 12% growth from last year and reports nearly 70,000 attendees with 538 exhibitors. No details on Turnstile yet, but last year it was 223,000. This puts it firmly in the #1 spot again for 2019.
"Turnstile" represents the number of people coming in and out, so somebody entering and leaving multiple times gets counted for each time.
Essen Spiel will be in October. 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), but this chart is about specifically tabletop gaming conventions.
Gen Con had a 12% growth from last year and reports nearly 70,000 attendees with 538 exhibitors. No details on Turnstile yet, but last year it was 223,000. This puts it firmly in the #1 spot again for 2019.
| Convention | Unique Attendees | Turnstile | Exhibitors |
| Gen Con 2019 | "nearly 70K" | 223,000** | 538 |
| Essen Spiel 2018 | unknown | 174,000 | 900+ |
| UK Games Expo 2019 | 25,704 | 45,097 | 430+ |
| Origins Game Fair 2019 | 18,648 | 71,237 | 257 |
| Pax Unplugged 2017* | unknown | 45,000 | unknown |
*Claims to have doubled in 2018, but figures have not been published
**In 2018
**In 2018
"Turnstile" represents the number of people coming in and out, so somebody entering and leaving multiple times gets counted for each time.
Essen Spiel will be in October. 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), but this chart is about specifically tabletop gaming conventions.
