I’ve never been to Gamescom before. I’ve heard all the rumours, though. Gamescom is obviously an event I’ve been aware of for a very long time and it appears to have been growing in stature as of late – even Nintendo decided to return this year after skipping the show in 2024.
If you’ve been to the show before, then this piece isn’t for you. Attending for the first time, I thought I’d share my own experience for those who may want to consider attending in future.
The show takes place at Koelnmesse – no laughing in the back, I know the name sounds like what happens the day after a particularly spicy curry – which is in the German city of Köln (aka Cologne).
The predicted weather for the week was relatively warm 24-28°C (~75-83°F), and only staying for two nights meant I could pack lightly. I filled my trusty Gundam backpack with some clothes, toiletries and my work gear (laptop, powerbank, etc.), and I was good to go.
Let’s-a-go!
Flying from the UK, my journey started early Tuesday morning with a 1-hour drive to Birmingham Airport, boarding a Lufthansa 1.5-hour flight to Munich and then sub 1-hour connecting flight arriving in Cologne mid-afternoon. The return journey was very different, but more on that later.
The airport isn’t that far from the city centre, so taking the train is probably the most cost-effective route. However, time wasn’t really on my side as I still needed to check-in to my hotel in the city and then figure out how to get to the venue before Opening Night Live, there was a simpler answer: Uber.
I’d seen taxi rides quoted at upwards of €100, so the €35 being quoted by Uber seemed logical (and I was sharing the ride with Sammy from Push Square).
Where to stay?
20 minutes or so later we were dropped off at our respective hotels and all checked-in. I stayed at 3-star Hotel Windsor – I couldn’t resist the name, having recently visited our own Windsor — which is slightly on the edge of the city but still only a 10-15 min walk.
We did book accommodation slightly late (maybe 1-2 months before), and unfortunately, the prices are clearly hiked up around the time of Gamescom. We’re talking about €200-250 a night for even 3-star hotels. Advice: don’t leave it late, book early!
Location-wise, though, I was relatively happy. The city is split in half by the Rhine River, with the exhibition centre on the right-hand side of the water. Your instinct might be to get a hotel on the same side, but I wouldn’t. The majority of the city restaurants, squares, bars etc. are on the left side.
Getting Around Cologne
The two main landmarks will be Koelnmesse itself and Kölner Dom, Cologne’s absolutely stunning and unmissable (in every sense of the word) Cathedral, which is on the opposite side of the river to the event. These perfect way points mean you shouldn’t get lost.
Conveniently, the central train station is right next to that beyond massive Cathedral, which has a dedicated sign-posted line (or “track” in local speak). This was platform 10 whilst I was there. The Koelnmesse is the next stop across the river, so you can just about jump on any train (check the next stop on the boards).
I’m not going to lie, initially, I found the trains quite difficult to navigate. There are so many different naming conventions compared to the UK. Each route has its own name and there’s a mix of ICE (InnerCity Express) trains which go inter-city and more local trains too.
The good news is that all of this transportation is free. Along with your Gamescom admission ticket you are issued a travel ticket that allows you to take these local trains. The ticket itself says you must carry photo identification, but my ticket was never checked.
Alternatively, it’s easy to walk across the bridge, which takes around 10 minutes side to side.
Opening Night Live!
As well as never attending Gamescom, I’ve also never been to one of these live showcases. My role has always been to assist our editorial teams during these shows, or simply make sure our websites don’t fall over. They would have to survive without me this time.
The stage and lighting were really impressive in person. Less impressive was the fact that seating was all at floor level, so unless you’re towards the front, your view isn’t anywhere near as good as it would be at a venue with tiered seats.
I don’t understand the concept of “pre-shows” from a consumer point of view, I can only imagine it’s a commercial standpoint to do with pricing. The pre-show had some really cool games that deserved to be in the main show, and the presenting was goofy and bordering on cheap.
At this point, you’ve likely seen the two-hour show (or at least the highlights). Attending it in person was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, similar to watching at home but with the crowd ‘woops’ and ‘cheers’ in full Dolby Atmos quality and the bass rumble from the trailers slapping you round the face over and over again. Maybe I’m old but I think it was a bit too loud.
I’m glad I got to experience it, but I’m in no hurry to do it again. Full disclosure, I should also add that Gamescom were kind enough to invite Felix, Sammy and myself to the “VIP” ONL aftershow party where we all consumed at least 1-2 free burgers each.
Is It Really That Big?
My ticket was provided as a QR code, so adding this to my Apple Wallet made it super easy to enter the exhibition centre at the start of Wednesday – Day 1. No having to collect your badge or wristband anywhere or any of that nonsense. Good stuff.
Now then, the rumours are true: Gamescom is absolutely enormous. Whenever I’ve attended exhibitions in the UK they usually take up 1 or 2 (maybe 3) halls at the NEC or the ExCeL.
Gamescom takes over the entire Koelnmesse exhibition center. You’re talking around 4-5 halls just for the “main” games, 1 hall for merch and cosplay (split across two levels), and another hall for indie and retro games. It’s so big it even spills into the carpark at the back of hall 8.
Throw in another 3 halls for the business-only area and you start to understand the scale of it.
Once you get your head around the scale of it you’ll also notice the sheer quality of the stands on offer, because of the amount of floorspace on offer booth after booth oozes with slick design and is a feast for your eyes. Kudos to anyone who worked on these stands.
After doing an entire lap of the show (and taking over 500 photos) the layout was now etched in my head and I’d even discovered some hacks. You can avoid those main corridors with seas of people by moving between halls using the side doors.
Queues, Queues, Queues
If you’re looking at my photos thinking “it doesn’t look that bad” please keep reading. Being a member of the press I was able to look around and take all my photos on Wednesday, the day that only a small number of non-trade consumers are able to attend.
I felt the show get noticeably busier on Wednesday afternoon when those consumers were allowed in, but it was nothing compared to Thursday. Oh boy, the rumours keep getting truer.
335,000 people attended Gamescom in 2024 and whilst daily figures aren’t available, you’d have to estimate that at least ⅓ of them were there on each day. It’s hard to imagine 100,000 people shuffling around the event halls but in reality, it’s wave after wave after wave of people moving in every direction constantly – it’s a little overwhelming.
There are a lot of games at the show, true, but every game has a limited capacity, some better than others. Long queues for popular games form almost immediately. Some people have clearly been before and have brought their own fold-out chairs – smart – because they know they are going to be queuing for hour(s) before it’s their turn to grab the controller.
If you’ve ever been to a theme park in peak season and waited 2 hours to go on a roller coaster, then you’re in the right ballpark. These are theme park-level of queues, perhaps not in physical length, but in terms of wait time.
Variety is King
Away from a negative and onto a positive, I was blown away by the amount of different things going on at the show. There was an absolute ton of big games and an amazing amount of indie games too.
No only that, though, there were lots of other attractions such as the EVA (Esports Virtual Arena) booth, a human foosball table, cosplay village, ninja warrior-style challenges and inflatables.
A huge number of peripherals were showcased too, especially those from the sim-racing world, I think I counted at least six different manufacturers of racing wheels all showing off their products on sim rigs.
There was also a complete spectrum (not that one) of merchandise too all the way from the stereotypical anime figurine fest all the way up to a fully stocked official LEGO store. There was tons of trading card vendors and even an artist area. I didn’t see anyone selling retro games, though, but almost anything else gaming you can think of.
As a bit of a car nerd, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of cars at the show, including this absolutely beastly GR Yaris.
What Are The Food and Drink Options?
The areas outside between the halls are where most of the food vendors can be found. You can get food in some of the halls but they are few and far between. I actually really liked the fact that the show generally separated the food away from the showfloor.
Unsurprisingly, outside it was the expected pom frites (chips), burgers, bratwursts (hog dogs), fried chicken and pretzels on offer. The quality was decent, probably better than food in the UK, to be honest. I should add that there was also a very popular Subway stand on the showfloor.
Inside, you could get more sweet treats like crepes and churros. Aside from these vendors, there were also some smaller convenience-style stores in the main concourse areas, but I did notice that some of these were cash-only.
Drinks were heavily weighted towards your usual bottles of Coke, Fanta, and Red Bull is clearly very popular in Germany. (TIL Germans love to mix Fanta and Coke to make a drink called ‘Spezi’).
Prices were slightly on the high side, with a pretzel and Red Bull setting me back around €9. On the upside service was good, fast and minimal queuing. On the downside, there aren’t many ‘proper’ places/tables to sit down near these food vans; you’ll end up perched on the floor or a random surface you can find, if you’re lucky.
Race Across The World
As I alluded to above, my return journey was not quite as simple. Lufthansa operate trains as “virtual flight connections”. Not quite sure how this worked, I arrived at the train station well ahead of time and managed to decipher the board and found my platform. So far, so good.
I was slightly curious as to how this all worked as the connection time between arrival at the Airport (from the train) and Departure boarding was only 30 minutes or so.
I keep watching the board and suddenly my train is updated and scheduled 5 minutes late. Then 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 25 minutes. I check my Lufthansa app, and a notice appears “your connection is now at risk and we are monitoring the situation”. Great. It’s the last flight to BHX of the day, so if I do miss it, I’ll have to be put in a hotel overnight, and my wife will have to miss work tomorrow.
The high-speed (265km/h) ICE train finally arrives, and we depart nearly 35 minutes late. Whilst on the train I study the airport map to see where my gate is and the fastest route – like any good gamer would.
Train pulls into the station, I sling my 8kg backpack on and start running down the platform, up the stairs across the link bridge up more stairs and into the terminal. My calves are burning as it’s now 10 minutes before boarding is due to close.
It’s fairly late in the day, so thankfully the passport control has no queue – the guard stamps my passport and I rush through security. Of course, my backpack gets the dreaded punt of shame into the “we’re going to check your bag” lane.
The clock ticks on like an escape sequence at the beginning of an action game. The guard clears my bag and I sling it back on, looking like Sam Porter Bridges from Death Stranding as I continue to run through the airport to my gate.
I reach my gate with 5 minutes to spare, only for an announcement to follow shortly after telling us that boarding is being delayed for 20-25 minutes whilst they “get the plane ready”.
Morale of the story: it’ll be fine.
Conclusions
Cologne was a nice city to visit and I felt safe walking back to my hotel fairly late at night. I can’t claim to have seen loads of the city, but what I saw was pleasant. The city centre is very tourist-friendly as it welcomes visitors to it’s Cathedral on a year-round basis.
Gamescom was similar to shows I’ve attended before, but on a whole new scale. It’s massive. It’s loud. It’s busy. There are people everywhere. It’s hot. It’s tiring – I did 50,000 steps (~35km) across my two day visit. The queues are often long, but not always.
Would I recommend attending? I think it comes down to your priorities. If you’re going hellbent on playing the latest AAA games, it’s a tough ask considering the cost of travel. If you’re going with friends, taking your time and soak up the festival-esque atmosphere and maybe play some games along the way, there is a much better chance you’ll get value for money.
Time for a sleep. 🫠
Did you go to Gamescom this year? Have you attended before? What was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.
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