SPIEL Essen 2026
The world's largest public board game fair returns to Messe Essen for four days of new releases, demos and play-to-buy across hundreds of exhibitors.
SPIEL is the biggest tabletop event on the planet, and its 2026 edition runs 22-25 October at Messe Essen in Germany. Every autumn the halls fill with hundreds of publishers and thousands of new and upcoming board games, card games, role-playing games and miniatures, a huge share of them premiering at the show. Visitors can sit down at open tables, learn rules from designers and demo staff, and buy directly from stands, often at fair prices and with limited convention editions. For players from Croatia and the wider region, SPIEL is the single best trip of the year to discover games months before they reach local shops, meet designers and illustrators, and stock up on everything from family and party titles to heavy strategy and two-player duels. It is family-friendly, open to the public rather than trade-only, and draws well over 200,000 people, so plan tickets, travel and a shopping list in advance. Whether you come for a specific hotly anticipated release or just to browse and play, expect long days on your feet and a bag full of new boxes on the way home.
Image: Achim Raschka / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:17-10-27_SPIEL_Majesty.jpg