Spiel
Boardgame trade fair in Essen, Germany
Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, often called the Essen Game Fair after the city where it is held, is an annual four-day public boardgame trade fair held in October (Thursday to the following Sunday) at the Messe Essen exhibition centre in Essen, Germany. It began in 1983. With 220,000 people attending, 948 exhibitors from 50 nations presenting more than 1700 new board games in 2025, SPIEL is the biggest fair for board games in the world - a title it had for over a decade. Many new games are released at the fair each year, especially (but not exclusively) European-style board games.
At SPIEL, board games that are often hard to find in retail are offered by international and small exhibitors. While the prices for buying these games at the fair do not tend to be significantly lower than in retail, games are typically available sooner than in regular board game shops and may come with promotional materials (mostly extra cards or tokens with a few more game mechanics, but also T-shirts and similar merchandise). SPIEL also provides an environment for board gamers to meet and chat with game designers, illustrators, and game reviewers.
01Years and attendance
| Year | Attendance | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 147 000 | |
| 2012 | 149 000 | |
| 2013 | 156 000 | |
| 2014 | 158 000 | |
| 2015 | 162 000 | |
| 2016 | 174 000 | |
| 2017 | 182 000 | |
| 2018 | 190 000 | |
| 2019 | 209 000 | |
| 2020 | 0 | |
| 2021 | 93 600 | |
| 2022 | 147 000 | |
| 2023 | 193 000 | |
| 2024 | 204 000 | |
| 2025 | 220 000 |
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Spiel”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Essen 2008 50120.jpg by Matěj Baťha, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Messe-Essen-Eingang-Sued-2016.jpg by Tuxyso, CC BY-SA 3.0
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