Nov
4
Big game hunter: The search for the next Monopoly
Surprisingly fascinating!
“In 1983 Friedhelm Merz, the editor of Die Pppel, organised a small get-together for games lovers in an Essen school hall. Five thousand people turned up, and the road outside was so overcrowded, it had to be closed. Today, Internationale Spieltage – more commonly known as “Spiel” – is the world’s largest annual board games convention, occupying, for four days every October, 10 cavernous exhibition halls at the Messe Essen exhibition centre. The Nuremberg Toy Fair in February is larger, but that’s for the trade; Essen is for the people. This year, 152,000 of them came to play 600 brand new board and card games from 763 exhibitors, representing 31 countries”.
