gamescom LAN 2025 Doubles Attendance With 3,500 Visitors in Cologne
The gamescom LAN is officially no longer an experiment. The second edition of the community event, organized by TaKeTV and MYI at the Cologne exhibition halls from February 21 to 23, more than doubled its numbers across the board: 3,500 visitors, 200 content creators, and over 500 registered business guests came together for a weekend of LAN gaming, esports, trading card games, and creator meetups. For an event that only premiered a year ago, that is a remarkable growth curve.
More than 80,000 euros in prize money
Competition was the backbone of the weekend, with tournaments across the LAN area and the brand-new trading card games and fighting games hall paying out a combined prize pool of more than 80,000 euros.
The biggest stage belonged to the EUROPEAN TEKKEN CUP 3, where German player Nino "Nino" Schwarz took the title and a share of the 32,000 euro prize pool. The first edition of the global Smash Ultimate Super Major drew close to 330 participants, won, remarkably, by 16-year-old French talent Laurent "crêpe salée" Vorburger, a name worth remembering. Elsewhere, the MckyTV Winchallenge handed out 20,000 euros across Fortnite and Fall Guys, and the Teamfight Tactics EMEA tournament played for 13,000 euros plus a spot at the official EMEA Golden Spatula.
The TCG bet paid off
The organizers' biggest gamble this year was giving trading card games and fighting games their own dedicated hall for the first time, and according to the closing report, it became one of the most popular areas of the entire event, with enthusiastic feedback from communities in Germany and abroad.
That should not surprise anyone who has watched the card game scene lately. Physical play is booming, and an event that combines LAN party culture with TCG tournaments and fighting game brackets covers pretty much every flavor of competitive community gaming under one roof.
A fixture in record time
TaKeTV CEO Dennis Gehlen described a weekend that showed how alive and passionate the gaming community is, while MYI's Cédric Schlosser argued the LAN has become far more than a LAN party, a central meeting point of the gaming scene. game association boss Felix Falk went further, calling the gamescom LAN a mandatory date in the gamescom cosmos after just two editions.
Koelnmesse COO Oliver Frese highlighted the strategic angle: with the LAN in February, Cologne now welcomes gaming fans months before the main gamescom event, this year running August 20 to 24. Anticipation, it seems, is now a year-round business.
Doubling attendance in a single year sets a high bar for edition number three. But with the TCG expansion landing this well and the creator lineup growing, the gamescom LAN looks like it has found its formula.
