The premiere of the new leading trade fair for interactive entertainment and games – gamescom – has been a complete success. 245,000 visitors came to the Koelnmesse site from 19 – 23 August to experience and try out game novelties provided by 458 exhibiting companies from 31 countries. Straight away this makes gamescom the largest games fair in the world and with a ratio of around 44 percent, internationally extremely successful. After five intensive trade fair days, event organiser Koelnmesse and its conceptual sponsor, the German Association of Interactive Entertainment Software (Bundesverband Interaktive Unterhaltungssoftware – BIU) were very pleased with the result.
Oliver P. Kuhrt, managing director of Koelnmesse GmbH: "The gamescom premiere ran splendidly. We are very happy with the enthusiastic response of both exhibitors and visitors. This has established gamescom as a leading trade fair straight away." Olaf Wolters, managing director of the BIU in his summary: "We are very proud of the premiere of gamescom. It fulfilled all our objectives right away and is the largest game trade fair in the world. Computer and video games are so attractive that our industry is breaking all records despite the economic crisis."

Over a space of 120,000 square metres, world, European and German premieres were presented to fans and families at the Cologne trade fair grounds. In addition to the game premieres, an entertaining supporting programme with activities, events and an emphasis on youth protection, gamesCompetence, provided a successful framework. In addition, around 100,000 people celebrated the games at the Tanzbrunnen, the Lanxess Arena and downtown Cologne, at the numerous events of the gamescom festival that were held outside the trade fair grounds.

On the trade visitor and media day, the potential of gamescom was already clearly evident. Over 17,000 trade visitors and more than 4,000 media representatives from 48 countries were guests at the premiere of gamescom and tested the hardware and software novelties from the 458 companies. The results from the exhibitor and trade visitor survey were correspondingly positive. 95 percent of all exhibitors emphasized the high visitor quality, 92 percent of all trade visitors assessed their own visit to gamescom as being successful. 90 percent have already stated that they will come back to Cologne in 2010. Numerous exhibitors both domestic and foreign have already confirmed their participation for next year. Gerald Böse, Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse GmbH, reported: "gamescom has set the trend worldwide and impressively underscored the power of Cologne as a media and communications location in the interplay between the trade fair, the city and the participating industries. This success is an important impetus for the future of Cologne media and entertainment fairs. It motivates us to expand even further on our trade fair offering for the digital creative economy."