I guess I’m inventing a new-for-me format here: “Table Talk” 😀 While my usual interview format Origin Stories is based on 90-120 min conversations that are well researched and in-depth on a single game or topic, Table Talk will be shorter 20-30 min conversations to catch up with interesting people in the hobby. While being at SPIEL Essen 2024, head of SPIEL Carol Rapp was so kind to sit down with me on the last day of the convention, about 2 hours away from closing time. In hindsight, this was perfect timing as it allowed us to reflect on SPIEL Essen 2024 as a whole.
Note: I like to make all of these conversations fun and not have guests answer the same questions they had to answer a million times before. You can already hear about those topics in dozens of other interviews if you’re interested. So I deliberately didn’t ask about the ticket cap this year or people struggling to get last-minute tickets. But something as challenging to handle and as emotionally draining for the SPIEL team as having to tell people they won’t be able to attend of course found its way into the conversation. I was more interested in learning what it takes to create an event for 200,000 people and make it run as smoothly as SPIEL did.
Carol was very open and honest about what it takes for the SPIEL team to make this convention even possible, so please respect that. If you just want to let off steam about not getting a ticket, I’m truly sorry for you, but please do it somewhere else. That said, enjoy the interview!
I wanted to start with congratulating you!
[Carol laughs]
Because I was thinking: the press conference was super fun and entertaining. For me it was the first time at the novelty show, but everyone I heard around me said “awesome that there is so much more space, cool”. I noticed myself how much work it has saved me because I was already able to talk with people there. And [most importantly], it’s approx 200,000 people that are happy to be here [at SPIEL]. In that sense, one should take pause and first say: congratulations!
Thanks!
Can you say something about the people that are attending? How many are the “hard core BGGer”, how many the family that spontaneously decides to come?
Puuh, that’s really hard to say. But you managed to land one hit: that question I didn’t get so far! [smiles] I can tell you that we definitely have a lot of families because we sold as many tickets for families and children as never before. So it must have been more colourfully mixed. I would also say that it was more colourfully mixed because – one can say many things about our posters, one can think they are great, one can think he’s a grim looking knight or something similar, but they have worked! As soon as that man was on posters in the whole Ruhr area, you could see how the ticket sales that were already good before exploded. [Alex laughs]
And we were sitting here and were thinking “WHAT is going ON?!?” [both laugh], we never had THAT before. I truly believe that a good campaign that makes you want to explore what’s behind it is much more valuable than as just saying “come play”, no disrespect. With that, we ignited something in people that made them want to come and throw themselves into this chaos of games, impressions, positive emotions, and everything else and simply experience the SPIEL.
Without the “hard core BGGer” – as you called them – it doesn’t work and of course we want them and they are here but I also believe that that spreads out over all four days. Because due to the national holiday, we had another curiosity: the Thursday was sold out. In the last years, Saturday was always the strongest day.
The mascot also was well received from everything I saw.
Meeps is great!
I heard people talk about it everywhere.
Yeah, I believe there are few other famous figures that got more selfies than Meeps. [jokingly] I believe he even got more than Alea.
Most people fail to organise a party for 30 people without everything going wrong. [Carol laughs out loud] What’s one thing that people don’t even think about but where you say it’s critical, something that takes a lot of effort?
One thing? One thing is hard. I would say a thousand things! It really starts with the hall plans: you have to pay attention to small and big publishers next to each other, alleys that are wide enough, what’s the direction of travel, … that’s really the basics because without it, it wouldn’t work down there.
But it continues with people at 8 o’clock in the morning, I correct, BEFORE 8 o’clock [Alex laughs] show up in front of the entrance doors. They aren’t allowed to go in, but they already standing there. And they would like to wait inside and that also has to be made possible. There’s a reason why there are 10,000 people in hall 7 and 8, even more than 10,000 people, to wait for two hours for entry. That also has to be planned and must be managed.
Even just these when-then questions: What happens if this and this happens, how can we react? Because we need to react fast! We have no chance to think about it ad hoc, and that’s the things we put a lot of time and energy into in advance to identify all those stumbling blocks.
I don’t think I would have thought about direction of travel, but it makes a lot of sense. What’s the point for you and your team where you can breath again and say things seems to work out. Is it only when the doors close?
No. I think since yesterday we are all deeply relaxed, right Damaris?
[Carol looks over to her colleague who’s manning the laptop and even while I was there, 2 hours before closing, had the patience to – in a calm voice – deal with people that tried to shout their way into the convention without a ticket. One can only imagine what it must have been like on Thursday and Friday.]
[Damaris agrees] But I don’t think this year it was the convention itself but the fact that the convention for the first time ever was sold out, and completely. That does something to the people out there. Many people inside “the bubble” or associated with the bubble had the notion “I’ve always just bought my ticket at the front door, that will surely work this year as well”. I can only say “please, please listen to me when I say something”. Because I said it in every interview, in every post, in everything we talked about, we said “people, we have a national holiday, we have star guests, please prepare for the fact that it can happen, we can’t estimate it right now, but it can happen”.
And as soon as it became clear to what it will culminate to, we again stepped on the gas and said please … what happens if there are no 4-day tickets? Buy day tickets. Such things. We anticipated it, but if people don’t want to hear or read, then you are powerless. There is nothing you can do. But that’s what here … actually a super good news: Monday morning, no 4-day tickets and [the SPIEL] only starts on Thursday. We celebrated that and as soon as we made it public, you don’t want to know what alarm went off here. With every single announcement we released to the public: “Thursday sold out” on the press conference on Wednesday. Before we had our own opening, Friday was sold out. We were so exhausted because we were taxed by so many negative emotions by people that were disappointed – and of course understandably disappointed, I don’t want to say that that wasn’t justified – but that of course took a part of our joy away.
In the moment of the biggest success. What can be better than to sell out?
Exactly! And THAT we had to first overcome, this valley of negative emotions, this valley of tears to cross, before we then received so many positive emotions coming our way. That was just … wow, okay, so we must have done something right after all. The exhibitors are all laughing and come to us when they see us and say “how amazing is this?”, it was so well organised, the team was always there to solve any problem, reaction times so good you practically cannot answer faster, mega!
I also noticed for myself how I thought in advance “oh my god, how will THAT turn out?” but then I entered the convention and thought yes, its crowded, but it’s still pleasant. I feel comfortable here.
This is also a reason why we said it must not be another 2019. Because 2019, at least on Saturday, it was so close to the capacity limit of this location … at the time I was still with Asmodee and I stepped out of our business area and it took me 10 minutes – I checked my watch – 10 minutes from there to the closest toilette. You cannot imagine it, but it was just so. And that’s no fun for anyone.
That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t attend Saturday last year.
See? Therefore we said we don’t want that because the people should have fun. And we want to be able to guarantee that the publishers are offering sufficient space for gaming, because only then people do have fun. Yes, it’s crowded in the alleys, but there is always the possibility to find a table somewhere. And that was important to us. In addition, COVID has changed a lot, different safety regulations, stricter safety regulations, we have wider alleys, and it goes on and on. A lot of tiny adjustment screws that result in us not being able to report another 2019 … and don’t want to!
I can say personally and based on everybody I talked to: the plan worked. Everybody felt it was pleasant [to be here].
One thing I didn’t realise before was how strong the integration with the hotels is. [Carol laughs] I stepped into my hotel and there was immediately a poster …
For the first time!
I had contacted people I only knew from the internet to perhaps play something there and expected I had to go as a supplicant and ask for a table. But I hadn’t even had a chance to ask as during check-in: “oh, you’re probably from the press for SPIEL. We have emptied the following rooms for you, the bar has been cleared, …” and I thought wow, in combination with the sold out 4-day tickets, do you feel the convention does become like a 4-day-vacation?
Yes, somewhat.
Is that something you want to push or should the SPIEL stay more spontaneous, this “come around”?
The SPIEL cannot work without the spontaneous. And it’s incredibly important that the SPIEL cannot work without it because without these spontaneous attendees – people that never got into contact with us and gaming – those are the people that saw that “grim knight” and are here now because of it and get infected with the gaming-positive-virus. And that’s what we want to achieve. Because with that we as the convention are the platform for the hobby and also for the publishers. With that, we help everyone in the industry.
I think it’s been 30 years since I’ve first been at SPIEL – which made me feel old – and I talked with people about how everything is subject to change, so the SPIEL also has to change. Games get more complicated, the playtime gets longer, which can make it more difficult to playtest a game. This year, some publishers sent out games 2-3 weeks in advance [to influencers] so you don’t discover them at SPIEL for the first time if you try to stay informed. There are so many factors [to consider]. Can you say something about what experience you want the SPIEL to be in the next years? It’s no longer THE novelty for things that one hasn’t seen before, it’s not that “come and play the whole day”, it’s a mix. What’s the direction you want to steer it to?
That’s a good question. To be honest, I haven’t thought about the ’25 or the years after it because it was so important to us that this year runs nice and smooth and that the new adjustments we made for this year work well. I would say: let’s see. Let’s collect feedback, and then we see.
But in regards to your other question: I don’t believe everything just gets more complex and longer but I believe that a lot of publishers also bring along beginner-friendly, short games, party games, inclusive games – lets call it that –, and that you can see as well. Because everywhere I look, everything is full. In hall 3 of course where the BGGs are, naturally, but also here. When you look down [note: we were talking in the SPIEL office on the upper level of hall 6], you see – perhaps not now that we are slowly but certain nearing the end – but you could look across the hall these last four days and basically only see full tables. And we are here in the family hall! That wouldn’t have been the case 10 years ago.
It’s a great result that the hobby is so rich.
Flipping sides: Do you have a wish for next year, something you would like to try out? Or … [jokingly] is your wish that the audience is listening more to what you say?
Aaah, that would be great! [jokingly and colloquially] Listen to us when we say something please. [And with a smile] We usually don’t mean bad, but we just want the best SPIEL experience for everyone.
Disclaimer: This conversation originally was conducted in German and was approx 10-15 min long. Any mistakes are likely mine as translator and editor, not Carol’s. I tried to insert emphasis and notes in various places to make it come through with how much passion, compassion, and respect Carol was talking throughout the whole interview.
What I really liked about our conversation was that it showed the human side of SPIEL Essen that far too often happens only outside the spotlight. For context, this is only the second year that this team is organising the SPIEL, which is a truly massive event. And as you can see from the picture below, it’s far fewer people than you might think. It also shows how rich our hobby is by now. For enthusiastic gamers like me, we often focus on games selling out on Thursday already and completely booked out demo slots. But there are also lots of people that just come to SPIEL to see what’s new for Catan or play Hitster … and even those that haven’t played a board game in years. Despite those unfortunate ones that weren’t able to get tickets this year, one has to always keep in mind that for 200,000 attendees, it was a great SPIEL.
