Gamescom to stay in Cologne – most likely until 2022

[Update 19/08/2019: German industry site Gameswirtschaft has reported that the new contract runs for three years, locking the event to the venue up until 2022. Next year’s show is also moving a week later in the calendar, from the 25th to the 29th of August. This moves it out of the school holidays locally, and should ease somewhat the pressure on tickets at an event that has no problem packing them in. As well as edging up the average age of attendees.]

Koelnmesse and german trady body Game have extended their contract to continue to run Gamescom at the venue for the foreseeable future – though there’s no date announced.

The lack of a date aside, the continuation of the show in Cologne is great news, for while the idea of a new venue and city might be seductive, especially for those who have been making the trip since it started back in 2009, the consistent growth of the show in Cologne should be rewarded.

Gamescom is now the second largest consumer show in Germany, a country which really loves such events, and has done a brilliant job at welcoming both trade and consumer visitors to a single event. Wanting to move the show out of a ‘grass is always greener’ attitude is a dangerous

370,000 people from 114 countries travelled to Cologne last year for its tenth edition. With the participation of 1,037 exhibitors from 56 countries new records were set. As such, Gamescom is easily the largest international games festival and remains unchallenged as Europe’s leading business platform for the games industry.

“Gamescom has experienced a unique development and has been able to increase its relevance for gamers and trade visitors year after year since 2009. The new contract strengthens the partnership between game and Koelnmesse and enables us to jointly achieve further dynamic development for gamescom and thus align it to meet the trends of our industry even more efficiently,” said Ralf Wirsing, Managing Director of Ubisoft Germany and Chairman of Game.

For his part, Gerald Böse, President and Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse sees “the seamless continuation of the good collaboration with game as a positive consequence of the unprecedented development that gamescom has experienced in Cologne: From the very start it was the leader in its segment, today it is an undisputed international hotspot. Cologne stands for gamescom and gamescom stands for Cologne. We want to further expand this good and strong connection to the benefit of the games industry and of the trade fair location.”

Felix Falk, Executive Director of game, said: “The joint strategy process of the past months has proven that Koelnmesse is exactly the right partner for us. The huge support lent to gamescom and the games industry by the City of Cologne and the State of North Rhine-Westphalia is an important ingredient for the unique success of gamescom, which we now intend to further expand.”