Gamescom wants more international visitors

The minds behind European trade show Gamescom want to branch out and make the event even more appealing to international firms.

Gamescom 2011 will be held at Cologne’s Koelnmesse this August and has already received exhibitor registrations from the US, Canada, Korea, the UK, France, Switzerland, Poland and the Netherlands – but the show’s organisers are still not satisfied.

International trade visitors already experience all imaginable advantages in Cologne: easy transport, sufficient hotel realm capacity, our business area and so on,” Koelnmesse’s executive VP Oliver Kurht told MCV.

Our goal is further internationalisation, as well as continuing to develop Gamescom as a larger event and entertainment highlight.”

More than 19,000 industry professionals attended the show last year, with 4,400 media representatives from 49 countries reporting on the event. Nearly 2,000 visitors and 32 exhibitors were from the UK.

Add in the consumers attending on the public days and Gamescom 2010’s attendance grew to 254,000. Kurht claims that giving exhibitors access to the public is crucial to the show’s international appeal.

He said: The success of Gamescom is based on the conception of an effective business platform for the international games industry with a great public and entertainment part.”

Gamescom 2011 will run from Wednesday, August 17th to Sunday, August 21st.

Confirmed exhibitors include Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, Warner Bros, 2K Games, Bethesda, Konami, Namco Bandai, NCsoft, Trion Worlds, Valve, Deep Silver and BigBen Interactive.