Origins Game Fair Confirms 19K Attendees in 2025

Origins Game Fair just took place in Columbus, Ohio, and GAMA has announced the attendance figures for this year's event.

Last year (2024), the convention attracted 17,706 unique attendees. This year (2025), that number is up 8% to 19,171 attendees.

This included 410 exhibitors, an increase by 26% over last year, and 8,810 scheduled events, up 27% on last year.

These figures confirm Origins as the 5th largest tabletop-specific convention in the world, following Essen Spiel, Gen Con, UKGE, and PAX Unplugged. In June, UK Games Expo attracted 42,000 attendees.

Convention​	Attendance​
Essen Spiel	204,000 (2024)*
Gen Con	71,000 (2024)
UK Games Expo	42,000 (2025)
PAX Unplugged	30,000 (approx)**
Origins Game Fair	19,171 (2025)

*It's not clear whether Essen reports uniques or turnstile figures.
**PAX does not provide figures, but estimates are available.

 

[Shawn Carman]

Having spent many years visiting Origins for enjoyment and working at Gen Con, I quit going to Gen Con in 2022 and now just hit up Origins. I miss some of the enormity of the GC vendor hall and some of the people that I could only see there, but the cost and the crowds at GC are just too much for me. Origins is much more relaxed and pleasant. I had a great time this year, the best I can remember in a long time. I missed out on the sweat thing someone mentioned, but I can assure you it wasn't me!

 

[EthanSental]

Not that I trust my google search results but when I searched for unique attendance for dragoncon in the Atlanta area, AI google results came back with 72k for 2024. I haven’t been since 2006ish as it’s grown too large to enjoy for me, which at the time was comic based hunts for missing holes in thr collection and getting artists to draw stuff.

 

[Von Ether]

204,000?!? Holy crap! I can't even imagine that sort of event. Of course, I've never done any mega events like SDCC.