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GERMAN TRADE SHOWS OLIVER P. KUHRT, KOELNMESSE “THE NEW date for Gamescom in August is much more convenient, especially for the trade. We’ve decided on the new timing after internal discussions with the industry and the members of the BIU. A good number of people had a problem with the September date, so we have simply moved it. It is merely an accident that we clash with Leipzig as no other dates were available. Nobody wanted to create problems with Leipzig. Of course it now looks like we wanted to act against Leipzig, but this is not the case. Because we are here, absolutely sure that there will be no show in Leipzig any more – if you put it on the same day or six months later there will be no one there. The video games industry has decided to move to
Cologne. There is not more space for another show in Germany. Gamescom will be a huge, huge show – we already have our partners here checking out all the space we have for their stands. All the members of the BIU are backing Cologne – they represent over 80 per cent of the market. They are the premieres of the games industry and development. For the trade, the developer conference has been an important addition to Gamescom’s programme for us, and we were very keen to attract Frank Sliwka [former Games Convention Developers Conference organiser] to join us. Although to be honest, he didn’t need much convincing, because like everyone else he knew that the train was running in the direction of Cologne.
A tale of two As we revealed last week, plans are afoot for August 2009 to see two games industry consumer and trade going head-to-head. Michael French speaks to organisers from both Leipziger Messe and Koelmesse, as they
WOLFGAN MARZIN, LEIPZIGER MESSE “LEIPZIG has been an established event for the last eight years. To me, Gamescom’s decision to move its date to the same time as ours proves that it is the right date. With Cologne there is always these adjustments, be it to dates or figures. This is not the last adjustment they will make and I don’t think it’s professional to keep changing the details. Our focus now is simply on the preparation for our next show. Leipzig is the competent and reliable partner for the games community. Gamescom’s first show is ‘a vision’ – their show hasn’t happened yet, it only exists as a brand. It says it has the support of the German games industry. But who is this? Sure, important companies, but just the German subsidiaries of them.
Games Convention, however, is an international event open to the British, Americans and people around the world. The BIU is just a German association with 13 members – we had over 500 exhibitors at GC 2008. They claim to have 80 per cent, but this is just for the German market. We are very confident. We have international support and many organisations around the world are backing us. We still know that we have to prove that it will be a great event in 2009 – and we are working on that very closely. The consumer element for Games Convention is also very important for us. According to our research 95 per cent of 2008’s attendees said that they preferred Leipzig over any other place.