A couple of weeks ago, UK Games Expo overtook Origins Game Fair to become the world's third largest tabletop games convention. That a victory was short-lived, however, as Origins this week announced its latest unique visitor and turnstile figures, which put it back in third place again, relegating UKGE back down to fourth. The difference is very close, though - there's just 500 unique attendees in it, and both conventions seem to be growing right now (UKGE especially fast), so this leap frogging might occur for a while. Gen Con and Essen Spiel are, of course, 3-4 times the size of both.
As mentioned in the previous article, 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 tabletop gaming conventions are growing fast!
Convention | Unique Attendees | Turnstile | Exhibitors |
Gen Con | 60,819 | 201,852 | 500+ |
Essen Spiel | unknown | 174,000 | 900+ |
Origins Game Fair | 17,001 | 58,595 | 200+ |
UK Games Expo | 16,500 | 31,000 | 325 |
As mentioned in the previous article, 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 tabletop gaming conventions are growing fast!