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.

 

[Morrus]

Wow, I’m surprised that Origins is the 5th largest tabletop convention with those sort of attendee numbers. I thought there were more tabletop conventions pulling bigger numbers than that, but I’m likely thinking of a lot of “gaming” conventions that are more about tabletop miniatures games than RPGs.

Tabletop miniatures games are tabletop games.

A lot of the really big conventions which dwarf the likes of Gen Con are general pop culture or gaming conventions. Video games are much bigger than tabletop games. And pop culture generally is bigger than either. Pop Culture > Gaming > Tabletop Gaming > TTRPGs. We're right at the bottom niche of that list of decreasing niches.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I’ve definitely experienced it at multiple conventions.

So have I, but not all of those cons were gaming cons. Any big, crowded con is going to reek sooner or later, even when the attendees are wearing three-piece suits and think $100 lunch is petty change. It's a stereotype that gamers are unusually stinky.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

The late E3 was huge when I went in early 00's

 

[dbolack]

I love that they list the uniques, but did they also mention the turnstile count?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

So have I, but not all of those cons were gaming cons. Any big, crowded con is going to reek sooner or later, even when the attendees are wearing three-piece suits and think $100 lunch is petty change. It's a stereotype that gamers are unusually stinky.

There were multiple conventions going on at the Greater Columbus Convention Center at the same time as Origins. Including a meat scientist convention.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

There were multiple conventions going on at the Greater Columbus Convention Center at the same time as Origins. Including a meat scientist convention.

Aren't scientists usually made of meat, or did I miss a development in AI research recently?

 

[Jer]

When do you mean? This is the second highest attendance ever. It peaked at about 20K in 2019. Pretty close to this year’s figures.

I will say that it felt like fewer people this year than pre-pandemic years, but that's at least partly because they've figured out how to use the space better than they were pre-2020. The CABS board game area is actually much larger than it ever was before and it was packed full, the vendor area felt smaller but that's because it's spread over more of the square footage of the exhibit halls than it used to be, and the badge/ticket area is all the way on the far end of the convention center and not right in the middle of everything, which makes the central area far less crowded than it used to be as just a couple of examples.

I also think the lack of big companies made it feel a bit smaller as well in the vendor area - there weren't any companies taking up a massive amount of space. I'm not sure what the biggest company there was but there weren't any companies taking up a huge area crossing multiple sections like there were in the old days.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Aren't scientists usually made of meat, or did I miss a development in AI research recently?

 

[Egg Embry]

I’ll have to check out the LugCon, thanks for sharing. Is this years Con its first, if you know?

Yes, it is their premier convention. LUGCon is held at the Gas South Arena in Duluth, GA.

 

[Lalato]

Essen can have only 50,000 people in the Convention center at one time, and it runs for 4 days. 204,000 is the max number of day tickets they sell times the 4 days. So the big number is essentially turnstile. Uniques are probably significantly less than 204,000 because of day to day overlap.

I agree. This article mentions the limit. Would be cool to find out what the unique number actually is. Or what the turnstile numbers are for the other events so we have a like for like comparison.

Spiel Essen sells out for first time as 204,000 attendees set post-Covid record -

The world's biggest board game fair, Spiel Essen, has posted a new post-Covid attendance record amid completely selling out of tickets for the four-day event for the first time in its 41-year history.

boardgamewire.com