Game Convention prepares for record year as exhibitor numbers rocket

Europe's largest videogames show, Games Convention, has announced that 367 exhibitors have signed up for this year's event, making it into the largest GC yet - with over 150,000 people expected to attend over the four days of the expo.

The total floor space of the expo, which takes place in the Leipziger Messe exhibition centre in the German city of Leipzig, has grown by 13 per cent over last year to 90,000 square metres, while the exhibitor numbers are up some 31 per cent.

The event, which attracted 134,000 visitors in 2005, is also expecting to see a major increase in the number of consumers travelling to attend Games Convention during its public days, which run from the 24th to the 27th of August.

"We are assuming another visitor record," according to Leipzig Fair executive vice president Josef Rahmen, "and expect more than 150,000 people to come from all over Europe."

To assist travellers to the show, the German rail service Deutsche Bahn is running special trains to Leipzig from the cities of Cologne and Munich on Sunday August 27th, which will leave in the small hours of Sunday morning and travel overnight to Leipzig, with return services that evening bringing travellers back to their home cities after midnight on Sunday night.

As well as the main expo, Games Convention this year will be accompanied by a range of side events - including a concert of game music in Leipzig's Gewandhaus on August 23rd, which will act as the opening event for the convention for the fourth year running.

This year's concert will include music from Final Fantasy, Two Worlds, Anno 1701, Revenge of the Shinobi and Castlevania, and tickets for the concert have already sold out.

Ahead of the public expo, Leipzig will also pay host to the Games Convention Developer Conference (GCDC), which promises to be the largest such event yet and will include talks from Lionhead's Peter Molyneux, Stormfront CEO Don L Daglow and IGDA chairman Bob Bates - while celebrated designer Will Wright will be delivering a keynote talk at GC itself.

More information on Games Convention and GCDC can be found at the Games Convention website, www.gameconvention.de.