So the news has just rolled in. Spiel 2020 is officially canceled.

In the official words of the organizer…

Faced with an unchanged dynamic situation and the resulting lack of planning security, the world’s largest and most-visited public fair for board games SPIEL, which last year welcomed more than 200,000 visitors and 1,200 exhibitors from all over the world, will not take place this year and will be postponed until next year.

“We have observed the very dynamic national and international development with regard to Covid-19 very closely over the past weeks and months and have evaluated all possibilities for holding SPIEL ’20”, explains Dominique Metzler, Managing Director of the organizing Friedhelm Merz Verlag. “Unfortunately, this has led to the conclusion that we will not be able to hold SPIEL ’20 at the planned date due to a lack of planning security. A solid and responsible fair preparation is not possible under the given circumstances. For this reason and after a long period of consideration, we have come to the result, which is certainly very painful for everyone, that we will have to postpone SPIEL by one year.”

The next SPIEL will take place from 14.10. to 17.10.2021 at Messe Essen.

Press Information 18 May 2020

Even Essen Spiel is not spared the New Normal and would have to figure out the new “rules of the game” as Spiel20 gets asterisked. This will be a strange year indeed.

My take is that this is the right decision. While most countries are easing up on their lockdown / stayhome policies and starting to get the economies back on track, we may not be out of the woods yet and October is not that far away given the amount of upfront planning both the exhibitors and the participating publishers need to take care of.

For us, this year will be the first “break” from our yearly Essen Spiel trips since 2012. Am sure we’ll be able to put the “spare time” to some good use. We already have plans and hope to share some of that with you soon.

The next question would be Et tu BGC Retreat 2020? #nextpostla

Until then hoping everyone #staysafe.