Essen SPIEL Survival Guide
It’s coming! It’s coming! The board game event of the year: Essen SPIEL. This is THE toy and games convention in Europe, lasting 4 full days in October (13-16th) and seeing the vast 150,000 strong horde of attendees exploring a likely 1000 new tabletop game releases. This is going to be one heck of a weekend.
The great Board Game Geek Essen preview is already up and being added to daily! You can see there if not all, then most of the tabletop releases you can try to pick up. I’m already excited about seeing Anachrony, The First Martians and Caravan, and things are barely even starting! I’ll be doing a full Top Games of Essen list as I did last year, closer to the time.
What to Expect
Essen is a huge trade fair, taking up several of the largest halls in the Essen exhibition centre. It’s big, there are lots and lots of booths, and there are lots and lots of people. Most importantly, this is a “selling fair”. Attendees are there to buy games, publishers are there to sell.
There is no open gaming area in the exhibition hall itself, though many booths will have demo tables for you to try out the new (and occasionally older) releases from those companies. So don’t turn up hoping to get a table and play some games. Instead, game playing is done in the evening, and the majority of Essen’s hotels will see gamers taking up the tables of their bars and restaurants playing all the new games they just bought at the fair.
The Essen Survival Guide
Make a plan – Go through the Essen previews a couple of weeks before you travel and identify all the cool games you want to prioritise. Rank them. Figure out which one you need to get to first and make a beeline for it on the first day if it’s one of the hot new releases. Print off a map with all the exhibitors on it and plan a route for who to visit. Just be sure to allow plenty of time if you want to get demos!
Pre-order – If there are big games you absolutely must have, the best plan is to pre-order them directly from the publisher. The fact is, there is just never enough supply at these conventions, particularly for a publisher with a lot of games in their catalogue. Most will offer Essen pick up.
Just relax – take some time to just wander around. It’s easy to get swept up chasing down the latest hotness (particularly for a media person like myself) but don’t let that prevent you from exploring. There will be all kinds of cool titles out there to try that won’t have caught the attention it deserves. You never know what cool things you’ll find tucked away amongst the many booths!
Carry water – You’re going to be walking around a series of giant halls filled with people. It’s going to get warm. You’re going to get tired. Stay hydrated or you’ll make yourself ill! Of course, there’ll be plenty of places to buy over-priced drinks but you can save yourself a few pennies by bringing your own. Essen also has good accessible tap water if you need a top up!
Comfortable shoes – on the subject of walking around for a long time, good, dependable shoes are a must! All those games and publishers take up a big amount of floor space, and if you’re keen on grabbing the big releases you’ll need to expect some big queues. I’ll certainly be leaving my high heels at home.
Food – Convention food is expensive and rarely very healthy. My preferred approach is to have a big breakfast, a big dinner and while I would happily have a big lunch too, at conventions I tend to skip lunch, or just carry some fruit with me. It avoids the scalping from convention area food pricing and let’s you dodge the queues and focus on the reason why you’re there: to see games! Check out the Konditorei bakeries near the exhibition halls as a good place for food (Tip from Ronnay).
Bring a large bag – you’re going to be buying games. Games are big. Thus, big bags are a must. Those blue Ikea ones are perfect. Just be careful not to buy more than you can 1) carry, 2) fit in your suitcase ready for the flight home…
Bring cash – And don’t forget that means Euros! While some of the bigger booths will have card payments systems, many smaller companies won’t so the only way to get their games is with cold hard cash. Setting a budget and only bringing that much money is also a helpful limiter on how much you can spend! Speaking of which…
Beware those little card games – You know, the ones with the appealing art or the cute idea that you think, yeah, I’ll give that ago it’s only £10. These add up all too quickly! Especially if you’re not obeying the tip above.
A group of friends – going round in a group of 4 can make demos that little bit easier, as you’re a ready made demo group! No waiting for someone else to come along and sit down, you can just get stuck right in. If you’re not in a massive queue for the big releases of course. If you’re flying out alone, like I am, don’t worry about it. Be open and ready to chat to people. Board gamers are a social lot and it shouldn’t be hard to find a few similar people to buddy up with for the day!
Language dependent – Essen, being in Germany, offers some unique challenges for the English speaking crowd. Firstly, make sure you’re picking up the English edition as your thrust your cash in a seller’s hands. It’s normally easy to pick up English rules online, but that only helps if the cards and other components are language independent! The people running demos might also not have English as a first language, making teaching that new game harder than normal. If there are games you really want to try, it might be worth looking up the rulebook ahead of time on BGG and giving yourself a good grounding before you arrive.
The BGG booth – Keep an eye out on the BGG stand, they’ll be tracking what games are getting the buzz at the show – you don’t want to miss out on the games that got everyone talking! This tip is from Daisy Swaffer in the comments!
Getting there
Essen is in Germany (FYI) and is well served by travel links. It doesn’t have an airport of it’s own, but it’s a fairly easy train ride direct from Dusseldorf airport which most UK airports fly to. Of course, there is also the Eurostar option or even driving, which is particularly appealing if you’re planning on buying lots of games. There are a couple of comprehensive guides on getting to Essen that I recommend you check out for more details:
Planned coverage
I’m going to be running around Essen like a headless chicken trying to see everything and meet everyone I can. Expect a barrage of tweets and pictures as I try things out and a whole load of First Impressions articles for the games I play, and hopefully some reviews for the games I buy. Just like I did for the UK Games Expo earlier in the year. It’s going to be awesome! If you’re coming, be sure to look out for the dashing guy in the Creaking Shelves T-shirt, and don’t be afraid to say hi!
If you have any tips for surviving a big con, be sure to share them in the comments!
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