Essen Spiel takes place across about 9 large halls, most filled with retailers selling new board games and card games, but with a good representation for RPGs, miniatures and LARPS.

The event also hosts a comic convention at the same time.

As the event is mainly a retail event - compared to other CONs which are more aligned to game playing - many players end up sitting on any spare floor area and getting out their newly aquired games to play.  This slowly squeezes the walk ways tighter and tighter.

Parking

Parking can be very painful and time consuming...  Arrive early and you're likely to get parking within a 5 minute walk from the halls, arrive after the halls have opened and you should be prepared to walk 15 - 25 minutes from the car park.

Although it is not obvious, you will be asked to pay for parking when you leave.  From memory this was about  €10 (roughly US$15/ GB£ 9) for the day as you exit.

Essen - more correctly "Internationale Spieltage SPIEL" - is an annual board gaming event that takes place in Germany, in the city of Essen.  To many board gamers this is their 'Mecca Event'.

Over 120,000 visitors descend on this event to see the newest board games, card games and other social gaming interests, such as RPGs.  The fair takes 4 days, from Thursday  21st October through to Sunday, the 24th October.