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Gen Con has grown to a whopping 74,000 attendees–over 2,000 more than in 2025–maintaining its place as the world’s second largest tabletop gaming convention. Going by turnstile figures, Gen Con does appear to be closing in the largest event, SPIEL Essen in Germany.
Two figures are often reported: attendees represents the number of tickets sold, or unique attendees, while turnstile tells you how many people entered the event in total, but counts people who attend on multiple days multiple times.
By contrast, Origins Game Fair shrank slightly, going from 19,171 attendees in 2025 to 18,700 in 2026, while UK Games Expo grew from 42,000 attendees to over 51,000. Origins and UKGE used to leap-frog each other every year, vying for the third spot, but UKGE has had enormous growth over the last few years.
Of the other main tabletop gaming conventions, SPIEL Essen 2026 is in October and PAX Unplugged 2026 is in December.
Not all conventions report all the relevant figures–SPIEL Essen only reports turnstile, not attendees; while PAX Unplugged and Origins only report attendees and not turnstile.
| Convention | Turnstile | Attendees | Exhibitors |
|---|---|---|---|
| SPIEL Essen |
220,000 |
- |
948 |
| Gen Con 2026 |
200,000 |
74,000 |
800 |
| UK Games Expo 2026 |
87,837 |
51,196 |
900 |
| PAX Unplugged 2025 |
- |
30,000 |
300 |
| Origins Game Fair 2026 |
- |
18,700 |
413 |
There are, of course, other large gaming and geek-themed conventions, some larger than these, but this list focuses on those dedicated specifically devoted to tabletop gaming. France’s Festival International des Jeux draws turnstile figures of around 110,000, and Italy’s Lucca Comics & Games dwarfs all of these with over 280,000 attendees. However, tabletop gaming only represents part of these events.
