Spiel Essen has broken its visitor record for the fourth consecutive year by hitting a record 230,000 attendance – with publishers reporting bumper sales despite increasingly fierce competition for attention from more than 2,000 new releases.

The world’s largest board game fair once again sold out all four days this year, drawing 10,000 more visitors than in 2025 after expanding into an eighth exhibition hall and taking over the entirety of the Messe Essen exhibition centre – its home for over 40 years – for the first time.

Almost 1,000 exhibitors from 53 countries packed into the 2026 show – up 5% compared to last year – while the event’s floorspace grew to a record 81,200 sq m – larger than 15 American football fields.

The new record attendance continues a period of rapid growth for Spiel, which attracted 193,000 visitors in 2023, 204,000 in 2024 and 220,000 last year – the latter of which outstripped the show’s previous record attendance of 209,000 from just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

But that ability to squeeze in larger and larger crowds has now reached its limit, Merz Verlag managing director Carol Rapp confirmed to BoardGameWire, with any further growth set to come via new events and experiences rather than increased attendance or exhibition space.

She said, “It will stay at 230 [thousand]”, adding that although the show was technically below its “legal maximum” attendance, the current levels allowed for visitors to make their way around the already crowded show floor more easily.

A shortage of exhibition space, however, has already been a recurring problem for Merz Verlag – which has been forced to introduce waiting lists for prospective exhibitors in each of the last three years, despite repeatedly expanding the show.

Organisers had to repeatedly rearrange hall layouts ahead of the 2024 show in order to accommodate as many publishers as possible while keeping safe amounts of aisle space. Expanding out into Hall 7 last year failed to eliminate the problem, and despite another expansion into Hall 8 this year, all available stands were booked up ahead of the April 30 application deadline.

That leaves the organiser facing the prospect of turning away more prospective exhibitors in future years, with no further exhibition halls available to accommodate them.

BoardGameWire reported in March this year that Spiel organiser Merz Verlag had “no intention” of relocating the show away from Essen in order to continue its expansion, saying that the event would remain in its current home “for the foreseeable future”.

Rapp has now doubled down on that sentiment, saying, “We are well aware that we are pushing Messe Essen to its absolute limits. But to immediately dispel any rumors: A relocation is not on the table.

“Our focus now is on continuing to refine and develop Spiel at the Essen location in the coming years.”

Expanded Focus

That development had already been apparent in recent years, with Spiel beginning to break out from its long-time status as a game-buying fair and opportunity for business meetings by adding a series of new events.

They include introducing Games Workshop’s Golden Demon miniature-painting competition in 2024, running a world record-setting game of Catan – Connect with more than 1,100 people in 2025, and adding the TCG Awards and Warhammer 40,000 laser tag this year.

The organiser also launched Essen spielt! in 2026, a partnership with the city which brought gaming events to venues across Essen during the fair – and said it plans to develop the initiative further in 2027.

Other new developments for 2026 included a business matchmaking platform aimed at helping publishers, designers, retailers and other industry professionals find potential business partners and arrange meetings before arriving at the fair.

Rapp told BoardGameWire she was pleased with how this year’s expansion had worked out – particularly the addition of a new northern entrance, which noticeably helped spread visitors more effectively across the exhibition halls, and helped reduce the vast queues which have formed at the start of each day in previous years.

She added that the new Hall 8 had also exceeded expectations, despite initial uncertainty about how exhibitors would make use of the slightly unusually-shaped space.

US publisher Allplay took Spiel up on an offer to move into a central position in the new Hall 8 – and COO Joe Wiggins told BoardGameWire that shift had paid off handsomely, with sales up 40% compared to the previous year’s show, marking the publisher’s most successful Spiel to date.

He picked out Enchanted Ivy as one of its big hits of the show, saying demand for the 450 copies of the title it brought was “non-stop” until the game was sold out at 3pm on opening day.

Wiggins said sales were good across its portfolio, from light titles to heavier strategy games – adding that the new location right at the show’s main entrance meant visitors were far more likely to discover its booth.

That interest was capitalised upon by Allplay through its decision to run a large number of demo tables as part of its booth, with Wiggins saying seeing games in action had helped draw people in, even if they weren’t a “typical” Allplay customer.

German publisher Pegasus Spiele also reported stronger-than-expected sales, despite arriving at Essen with relatively conservative expectations.

Company co-CEO Karsten Esser told BoardGameWire on Friday afternoon that sales were already ahead of the equivalent point in 2025, even without the benefit of a single major award-winning release driving demand.

Pegasus brought more than 40 new releases to the event, and said the breadth of its portfolio had helped compensate for the absence of an obvious blockbuster title.

Other exhibitors BoardGameWire spoke to also reported substantial sales increases, while the consensus generally was that last year’s busy Friday, Saturday and Sunday were added to this year with a Thursday which felt like a return to pre-Covid crowds.

Spiel Squeeze

While most halls saw attendees flowing easily, if slowly, around them during the fair, the long and narrow Hall 3 once again proved the trickiest to get around – especially given the enormous queues which formed at several different booths during the show.

Chief among those were the queues at Spanish publisher Combo Games, which snaked along one whole end of the hall and out of the doors – creating a line Carol Rapp said was among the longest she had ever seen at the show.

Combo had benefitted from its new release Queen Alice, which combines elements of chess with eurogame mechanics and an Alice in Wonderland-inspired setting, being the ‘most-thumbed’ title on BoardGameGeek’s Spiel Essen preview – leading to a sea of attendees trying to reach the booth to get their hands on the game.

Company co-founder Antonio Guillamó told BoardGameWire on the show floor that it had brought about 2,000 copies of the game to Essen, including stock earmarked for fulfilling Gamefound pledges, but had sold out by around lunchtime on Friday.

Demand was so intense that the Combo team was forced to concentrate purely on sales rather than demoing its games – and the huge buzz created other problems for the publisher.

Guillamó told BoardGameWire that Spiel had been “fighting” the publisher over the long queues, which ended up blocking access to other booths such as the nearby Dice Throne.

Rapp told BoardGameWire Spiel had provided advice on how to guide the queue to avoid it blocking other booths, as well as providing extra security from Messe Essen – which Combo had to pay for – to help manage the line.

She said, “They had one of the hottest titles of the show, and nobody can plan for that. I get that, and the team gets that. But if the crowd waiting to buy is turning into a safety issue, then we have to do something.”

Rapp said her team was always “counting the seconds on the first day” to find out where the biggest queues were emerging, in order to step in quickly and help prevent any blockages.

She added that another blockage at the 2026 event had arisen at Pegasus Spiele, with large groups of people congregating by the booth after buying their games – saying that Pegasus was told to fix the issue or their booth would be closed. That problem was sorted the next morning by introducing a guard rail, she said.

Rapp said in an interview with German board game channel Brettspiel-Kollektiv that one exhibitor had repeatedly ignored instructions intended to keep queues under control, leading organisers to prohibit further sales for the remainder of the day. The publisher involved was not identified.

She stressed to BoardGameWire that managing congestion was essential to keeping the event safe and enjoyable, particularly as the number of visitors and exhibitors continued to grow.

“As long as the people are moving, everything is fine,” she said. “As soon as you have a block, a cluster or whatever, in the aisles, and it’s taking too long, people will go crazy.”

The pressure of accommodating record numbers at Spiel also extended beyond the exhibition halls, with severe crowding on Essen’s public transport system each morning in the run-up to the show opening.

Standing Out

The growing scale of Spiel has also brought fresh challenges for publishers trying to stand out among the thousands of games competing for attention.

This year’s 2,012 new releases represented another increase on the prior record, with the volume of new titles becoming a significant consideration for companies deciding when and how to launch their games.

The head of one large board game publisher who spoke to BoardGameWire at the show suggested that while smaller publishers often needed the exposure provided by major events such as Spiel, the rising competition on site might make it more beneficial for them to spread releases more evenly through the year.

He argued that publishers should consider whether launching at a quieter time of year might make it easier for their games to attract attention – particularly given that consumers were increasingly buying board games year round rather than concentrating their purchases around Christmas.

The challenge was echoed by other industry figures at the event, who described an increasingly crowded market in which the quality of new games continued to improve, but with individual releases potentially struggling to establish themselves.

Value Judgement

For publishers, however, Spiel’s value continues to extend well beyond the opportunity to sell games directly to consumers – something especially crucial given the high cost of running even a small booth at the event.

While the base cost of the smallest booth option – 15 sq m – comes in at about €1,500, that figure can easily balloon to several thousand euros after adding mandatory charges for booth partitions, waste disposal, and the cost of transporting, paying for and accommodating even tiny numbers of booth staff.

Pandasaurus Games told BoardGameWire ahead of the event that it had heavily downsized its Spiel Essen booth this year, having previously spent more than €50,000 ($57,000) attending Spiel with its larger setup.

The US publisher shifted to using European Player Network, Asmodee‘s specialist English-language sales and distribution operation in the region, to handle its stock and sales at the giant German show this year – removing the need for Pandasaurus to transport and store hundreds of games, staff its own retail operation and devote much of its booth to selling them.

Pandasaurus CEO Nathan McNair estimated to BoardGameWire that the costs under its current model would fall between $20,000 and $25,000, with the expectation of selling similar numbers of games under the new setup.

Archona Games, the publisher of titles including Small Star Empires and Pest, told BoardGameWire at the event, “Our focus here isn’t the sales so much. It’s always nice to sell, and I mean, I’d love to have the success of some of the other currently hot games out there – I wouldn’t say no!

“But I think for us, the strategic sort of part of it is really what we do with our community as well as our partners.”

They said in-show meetings with potential partners had already created promising opportunities for 2027, and added that demoing games, gathering feedback and building customer relationships were all key reasons for attending the fair.

IELLO communications manager Roger Anthony-Gerroldt told BoardGameWire at the show that it had brought six staff dedicated to scouting new games and localisation opportunities, with three project managers seeking new designs for its main catalogue, two looking for titles to bring to the French market, and another representing its children’s games brand Loki.

He told BoardGameWire the team spent much of the event moving between meetings with designers and publishers, hoping to discover games capable of becoming long-term commercial successes.

He said, “They just take meetup after meetup after meetup, and they look at a lot of designs, and they hope that they find the diamond that will take the place in the market and stay here.”

But he acknowledged that identifying those potential hits was increasingly difficult, with IELLO typically finding only one or two games each year that met its ambitions – and some promising projects ultimately failing to make it into the company’s catalogue.

That challenge has become more pronounced as the number of new releases continues to grow, Anthony-Gerroldt said, with even successful titles increasingly struggling to maintain sales beyond their first year or two.

Ukrainian publisher Boardova, meanwhile, described its first experience running a booth at Spiel as a valuable opportunity for promoting its games and building relationships – while stressing that the costs of attending meant the event should be viewed as a wider marketing investment rather than simply a sales opportunity.

Pegasus Spiele co-CEO Karsten Esser told BoardGameWire that direct sales at Spiel remained an important part of covering the company’s costs of attending, saying, “Well, to be honest, we run the company because we want to earn money. Of course, we love games, but we are also interested in earning money. I have to say, therefore, yes – the number of games that we sell here do matter, and they help us to break even. And maybe we can even reach a surplus. We will see.”

But he added that the longer-term value of the fair came from the market intelligence it provided, particularly the opportunity to gauge consumer demand across the company’s new releases, and identify which titles might become future commercial successes.

AI Divide

The ongoing debate over the use of generative AI in tabletop gaming was also visible at this year’s Spiel, with an anti-AI sign campaign from Neon Hope publisher Hopeful Games taking place, while some publishers and accessories sellers were clearly making use of generative AI for their artwork.

Spiel organiser Merz Verlag has yet to introduce restrictions on exhibitors using AI-generated artwork, in contrast to several other major tabletop conventions which have adopted explicit policies in the past year.

UK Games Expo introduced a strict AI policy several weeks ago, prohibiting exhibitors from displaying or selling products created wholly or substantially using generative AI, while PAX Unplugged bans the sale of products incorporating substantial AI-generated content.

Origins Game Fair also requires products sold or distributed at the event to be created by human artists and creators. Gen Con, meanwhile, prohibits AI-generated imagery in its Art Show, although it has not introduced an equivalent general ban for exhibitors.

The issue has particular significance for Spiel, which faced widespread criticism in 2023 after using AI-generated illustrations on its official tickets, posters and app.

Merz Verlag subsequently abandoned AI-generated artwork for its 2024 marketing campaign, citing criticism from industry professionals and consumers, alongside continuing legal uncertainty around the technology.

Rapp told BoardGameWire at the time that the organiser had reconsidered its approach following the backlash, but did not believe it was Spiel’s place to make decisions about the wider industry’s use of AI.

The absence of a general exhibitor ban three years later leaves Spiel as an outlier among the major tabletop game conventions.

BoardGameWire contacted Merz Verlag in September with a series of questions about whether the show planned to follow suit with its own AI policy, but was told by a spokesperson that the topic was too wide ranging to be able to address while preparations for this year’s event were taking place.

Future Plans

With its exhibition halls full and visitor numbers now capped, Spiel’s organisers face the challenge of finding new ways to develop the event without increasing its physical footprint.

Rapp told BoardGameWire during the show that Merz Verlag was still exploring what that might look like, with the company due to hold its annual planning workshop this month.

“Maybe it’s focusing more on events, like you said, or celebrating the industry. I don’t know yet, but we will have some good stuff coming up next year,” Rapp said.

Spiel Essen 2027 is scheduled to take place from October 21 to 24.

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Gaming convention major PAX is doubling down on the success of its tabletop-focused Unplugged show by launching a second event in Houston, after growing the original into the second-largest tabletop gaming convention in the US after Gen Con.

PAX Unplugged Houston is set to take place at the George R Brown Convention Center from June 25 to 27 next year – marking the first expansion of the Unplugged brand since the dedicated tabletop convention debuted in Philadelphia in 2017.

Company event manager Sean Gonzalez told GamesBeat that PAX had considered several major cities while investigating the feasibility of a second Unplugged show, adding that Houston stood out based on infrastructure, demographics, data from other ReedPop events and demand from the industry.

“Most importantly though, Houston is where exhibitors wanted us to place the event,” he said.

PAX said in a separate announcement that Unplugged Houston will feature an expo floor for tabletop exhibitors alongside panels, tournaments and community events, although it is yet to reveal exhibitors, floor space, expected attendance or badge prices.

The show marks a return to Texas for the business, which previously ran PAX South in San Antonio from 2015 to 2020.

That convention featured both video games and tabletop gaming, but was discontinued after organisers said it had failed to expand during its four years, with the impact of Covid-19 ultimately delivering the final blow.

Gonzalez told GamesBeat Houston offered an opportunity to bring PAX back to the community which had attended PAX South, while giving the new event a more specific tabletop focus.

He added, “While we know that the current state of the economy impacts everyone, we are extremely confident based on the tremendous success we continue to see with the PAX events, particularly our Philadelphia PAX Unplugged, that the market will support PAX Unplugged Houston.”

PAX was launched by Penny Arcade web comic creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik in 2004 as the Penny Arcade Expo, after the pair decided they wanted a show exclusively to celebrate video gaming and game culture.

About 3,300 people attended the inaugural show, but that attendance had already soared to 58,500 by the 2008 event, leading to organiser to team up with New York Comic Con organiser ReedPop in 2009, and to launch a second con, PAX East, in 2010.

The company expanded again with PAX Australia in 2013 and the short-lived PAX South two years later, before launching the inaugural PAX Unplugged in 2017 after seeing the tabletop sections of its existing PAX conventions continue to expand.

PAX does not disclose precise attendance figures for PAX Unplugged, but says the Philadelphia event draws “tens of thousands” of visitors each year – believed to be north of the 30,000 mark. Its record 2024 show sold out all three days for the first time, filling all 528,000 sq ft of exhibition hall space with more than 350 exhibitors.

That growth puts it some way off the giant attendances of veteran North American tabletop convention Gen Con, which continued its record-breaking run this year to draw in more than 74,000 attendees.

But Pax Unplugged’s success has seen it displace long-running peer Origins as the second-largest tabletop gaming convention in the US – and its decision to launch a second event just 12 days after Origins 2027 is due to take place puts further pressure on the latter event.

Origins has been rebuilding its attendance since the pandemic, but unlike other major tabletop conventions such as Gen Con, Spiel Essen and the UK Games Expo has yet to regain its pre-Covid record of about 20,600.

The show’s attendance fell 2.5% this year to 18,700 – its first annual decline since the pandemic, although the fall came as other measures of activity at Origins remained stable or continued to grow. Exhibitor numbers increased marginally from 410 in 2025 to 413 this year, while the number of scheduled events climbed about 10% from 7,810 to more than 8,600.

PAX has not overtly positioned Houston as a competitor to Origins, but publishers weighing whether to exhibit at both now face the prospect of getting their teams and products to two major US tabletop shows within less than two weeks, alongside the associated staffing, travel, freight and booth costs.

That segment of the year also features the UK Games Expo, which has continued its meteoric growth into one of the world’s largest tabletop gaming conventions after more than 51,000 people descended on Birmingham’s NEC for the show’s 20th anniversary this year.

Badges for PAX Unplugged Houston are due to go on sale later this year, with applications for media and content creators also opening before the end of 2026.

The original PAX Unplugged returns to Philadelphia for its tenth show between December 4 and 6 this year.

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Spiel Essen has launched a dedicated B2B matchmaking system aimed at helping publishers, designers, retailers and other industry professionals find potential business partners and arrange meetings before arriving at the world’s biggest board game fair.

The new service, which is restricted to exhibitors and people with business visitor tickets, lets users create profiles detailing what they are looking for and what they can offer, send specific business inquiries, connect via chat and schedule appointments at the show using the built-in calendar.

Spiel said today that the system will be integrated directly into its dedicated app, adding that the move is intended to make networking between trade visitors, professionals and publishers “more targeted, simple, and effective”.

Business has long been an important part of Spiel despite its status as a public-facing convention, with major publishers operating their own dedicated B2B areas for meetings with retailers and other industry professionals.

B2B-specific companies such as manufacturers, crowdfunding services and trade organisations were still scattered across various halls in 2019, but that situation began to change after Spiel was taken over in 2022 by Merz Verlag – whose core event, Spielwarenmesse, is one of the world’s biggest B2B toy trade fairs.

Those companies began to be more concentrated in Hall 4 during the 2022 event – a move which intensified the following year amid a major reorganisation of the halls which attempted to more obviously split the fair into themed segments such as children’s games, family and light-to-medium games, expert games, tabletop and miniature games, roleplaying games and TCGs.

Florian Hess, managing director of Merz Verlag, said after last year’s record-breaking Spiel, “For exhibitors at the fair the focus is also on the joy of the games. At the same time, an incredible number of effective business developments emerge here – and this happens naturally alongside everything else.

“I don’t know of any other event that is as strong a springboard for a business’s launch as Spiel. I have met exhibitors who started here a few years ago with a small booth and are now occupying several hundred square meters and selling games internationally.

“Experiencing this kind of B2B rocket launch never ceases to fascinate me.”

The new system arrives as Spiel prepares for its biggest-ever event from October 22 to 25 this year – with an expansion into all eight main halls at the Messe Essen exhibition centre for the first time expected to see the event challenge its record 220,000 attendance set last year.

Spiel said earlier this year that it had reached the reached the limits of its expansion at its long-time home after boosting floor space to 81,200 sq m – larger than 15 American football fields – amid what it called “overwhelming interest” from exhibitors.

But despite the show bumping against its space limits at its long-time home, a Merz Verlag spokesperson told BoardGameWire in March, “We love Essen – as a venue and the city – and have no intention of leaving. For the foreseeable future SPIEL will remain in Essen as it has for more than 40 years now.”

The fair’s expansion into a seventh hall last year helped the four-day show to its record 220,000 attendance, outstripping the 209,000 visitor record it set just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Spiel might have broken its attendance record in 2024 were it not for a self-imposed visitor cap, which limited the number of attendees each day to about 50,000 – a measure introduced alongside wider aisles post-pandemic to help visitors move around the often crowded halls more easily.

More than 920 exhibitors from 53 countries are expected at this year’s event, with Merz Verlag saying in March that demand had come both from long-term exhibitors keen to “significantly increase” their booth space, as well as an “impressive number” of first-time exhibitors hoping to attend this year.

About half of the available tickets for Thursday, Friday and Saturday have already been sold, seven weeks before the show opens, with Sunday sales currently “lagging slightly behind”, the show announced today.

Access to the matchmaking platform comes as part of Spiel’s €46 business visitor ticket, which compares with €25 for a standard adult day ticket.

Spiel Essen 2026 takes place at Messe Essen from October 22 to 25.

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Australia’s biggest gaming convention is growing its tabletop exhibition space yet again amid the ongoing global boom in TCGs.

Pax Aus has featured tabletop games since the Melbourne-based con was launched in 2013, with the segment having grown over the years to take up a significant share of the show’s floor space.

The convention’s event director Lauren Luciani told BoardGameWire Pax Aus is expanding its dedicated tabletop hall by 7% for this year’s show, which takes place from October 9 to 11 – adding that even with that extended footprint, a waiting list had emerged for tabletop exhibitors.

Luciani said about 70% of exhibitors from last year’s show were returning for 2026 – although she would not reveal overall exhibitor numbers, or even an overall attendance for last year’s event, describing both figures as “confidential”.

Pax Aus’ announcement of this year’s show was once again dominated by major TCG publishers, underscoring the huge and growing popularity of a swell of different collectible card games over the past few years.

Magic: The Gathering‘s new Reality Fracture set, Disney Lorcana, Riftbound: League of Legends TCG, Star Wars: Unlimited, One Piece Card Game, Dragon Ball Super Card Game, Flesh and Blood and the Cyberpunk TCG were all namechecked in a recent announcement from Pax Aus showcasing this year’s event.

On the board game side highlighted games were thinner on the ground, however, with Asmodee studio titles including The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, Citadels Duel, Schadenfreude and party games from its Exploding Kittens studio the only non-TCGs namechecked in the announcement.

Asmodee ran a large booth at last year’s show, while other stands included board game distributors Let’s Play Games and Asmodee-owned VR Distribution (which rebranded to Asmodee in Australia last September), as well as a first-ever appearance from Warhammer publisher Games Workshop.

Other board game publishers with dedicated booths were few and far between in 2025, however, with much of the remaining tabletop section made up of retailers and a handful of stands for media outlets.

Update August 12, 2026: Pax Aus contacted BoardGameWire to add that TTRPG veteran Chaosium has just announced it will be attending, hosting free game sessions and showing off its co-op board game Horror on the Orient Express.

The event does include a large area for indie game developers on both the video and tabletop sides, however, called Pax Rising – expected to host more than 80 independent creators this year.

That segment also includes an Indie Showcase competition to highlight games from Australia’s independent design scene.

Last year’s winners in the tabletop category were Conquest For The Capital by MountainSoul Gaming, Coffee Up! by ToToTam, Cartograph – Atlas Edition by The Ravensridge Emporium, Panda Party by Cheerfolk, Spacewreck Salvage by Aethermon Studios and Potion Society by The Murmuring Mystic.

When asked by BoardGameWire whether Pax Aus now sees TCGs as the primary growth area for the convention, Luciani said, “The trading card game category continues to experience significant growth globally, and PAX Aus is committed to reflecting the interests and passions of our community in the content and experiences we deliver.

“While TCG will have a strong presence at this year’s event, there are still a number of tabletop announcements to come, and attendees can expect a diverse range of tabletop gaming experiences on offer.”

This year’s event will include a segment where fans can meet Australian game designers Jay Bendixen, Ryan Boucher, Natalie Delaney-John and Cam Jasson during special sessions for Gretchen’s Garden and That Dicey Word Game.

Pax Aus also appears to be attempting to broaden its appeal to the collectibles market. eBay Australia returns as presenting sponsor of the Tabletop Hall for a second consecutive year, expanding its presence with the debut of eBay Live, live-streamed collector content and a dedicated Collectors Club programme.

Australia remains a long, expensive trip for European and North American attendees, of course. But for international publishers weighing whether the expense of exhibiting in Australia can be justified, Luciani argued that the value extends beyond direct sales.

“PAX Aus provides tabletop exhibitors with access to one of the largest and most engaged gaming communities in Australia,” she said. “Beyond direct sales opportunities, exhibitors benefit from brand exposure, community building, hands-on product experiences and the ability to engage with both existing fans and new players.

“As tabletop gaming continues to grow, PAX Aus remains a unique platform for publishers, retailers and creators to showcase their products alongside the broader gaming culture that brings tens of thousands of fans together each year.”

PAX Aus now forms part of Melbourne International Games Week, Australia’s largest annual games festival.

This year’s event takes place at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from October 9 to 11.

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North America’s biggest tabletop gaming convention, Gen Con, has continued its record-breaking run after more than 74,000 attendees left this year’s sold-out show bursting at the seams.

Gen Con’s latest hefty attendance figure extends its steady post-pandemic growth, following record crowds of 70,000 in 2023, 71,000 in 2024 and almost 72,000 last year – which all broke the 2019 pre-pandemic high.

But the convention, which has sold out before opening for three consecutive years, is operating at a hard capacity ceiling at the Indiana Convention Centre. Gen Con president David Hoppe told the Indianapolis Business Journal last year that the show’s growth had left it “capacity constrained”, saying: “We fill every nook and cranny of this downtown core area.”

He added in that interview that he would love to get 80,000 attendees at the show some day – and Gen Con is set to take a step closer to that goal for its 60th anniversary show next year thanks to a significant floor space expansion and opening of a new Signia by Hilton hotel.

That expansion includes an extra 143,500 sq ft of floor space – roughly the size of 2.5 American football fields – and 800 new hotel rooms.

Indianapolis already claims to have the most hotels and hotel rooms connected by enclosed skywalks into a city centre in the US – and the new expansion will boost that capacity to more than 5,200 rooms.

Gen Con’s organisers did not say how many extra exhibitors or attendees the expansion is expected to accommodate, how much of the new space will be devoted to the exhibition hall.

Exhibitor and vendor numbers reached almost 800 at the packed out four-day event, Gen Con said. The show reported a then-record 575 exhibitors showcasing their wares last year, although the inclusion of “vendors” makes it unclear if the 2026 figure is directly comparable.

BoardGameWire contacted Gen Con’s press office earlier this week for confirmation on how much additional capacity next year’s expansion will create, and for clarity on exhibitor numbers in 2026, but is yet to receive a response.

This year’s convention also faced an unexpected operational test after severe thunderstorms prompted a tornado warning on Saturday evening, and caused water to shower down into parts of the Indiana Convention Center.

The worst affected areas were the convention’s playtest area and part of Exhibit Hall B, with attendees told to relocate to safer parts of the building while the warning was in place.

Exhibitors affected included Tycoon Games, with managing director Ben Rathbone telling the Indy Star, “As we were doing our demos and tournaments, drop of rain started coming through the ceiling up there.

“We immediately started pulling our stuff back, then there was a deluge came down, flooded the whole floor there, and we had to move all our games and store them out of the way.”

He added that the publisher’s games had been damaged “only a little bit”, saying that most of them were out of the way.

Gen Con said staff responded quickly to ensure safety and make repairs, adding that there was “minimal disruption” to the convention due to the leak.

This year’s event was also impacted by heavy amounts of construction work taking place around the convention site, leading to large build-ups of foot and vehicle traffic.

Gen Con president David Hoppe said of this year’s event, “Even through construction and thunderstorms, Gen Con 2026 was bigger and better than ever, with a record-breaking number of attendees gathering in Indianapolis for the best four days in gaming.

“We can’t thank Indy enough for hosting us, and we’re already looking forward to our 60th anniversary convention in an expanded Indiana Convention Center next year.”

Next year’s Gen Con is scheduled for August 5 to 8, with badges set to go on sale in early 2027.

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