In its first edition, Gamescom Latam (combined with the BIG Festival) grew to more than 100,000 visitors for its gaming expo in São Paulo, Brazil.
With 124 exhibitors and co-exhibitors from 66 countries, more than 700 studios and more than 200 publishers present, the event brought together big names in the games industry.
For the first time, Germany-based Gamescom created a combined event in South America with the traditional Brazilian game event BIG Festival to form Gamescom Latam. It ran from June 26 to June 30, with the weekend days sold out. Last year, the BIG Festival drew 50,000 people.
“The great success of the first gamescom in Latin America speaks to the strength of the global brand. gamescom shows impressive reach all over the world. It attracted great crowds and leading players of the industry. As intended, gamescom latam works to perfectly complement Koelnmesse’s international portfolio by reaching even further into the games ecosystem. We are very proud of this debut in Brazil and look forward to many events to come,” said Koelnmesse CEO Gerald Böse, in a statement.
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For 2025, Gamescom Latam returns with double the size, from April 30 to May 4, at the new location Anhembi Convention Center.
For Gustavo Steinberg, CEO of Gamescom Latam, the holding of the first edition of gamescom in Latin America exceeded expectations.
“Gamescom Latam showed, once again, the importance and greatness of the gaming industry on the continent,” Steinberg said in a statement. “We doubled the number of visitors to last year’s BIG Festival and the expectation is that in 2025 this number will increase even further. Next year we will be in a new place twice the size of this edition.”
“This years’ great success of gamescom latam is the impressive first step into becoming one of the major global events of the games industry. It was exciting for fans, fruitful for international trade visitors, companies and partners. Thanks to the whole team of all partners who did a great job for this first edition.” said Felix Falk, managing director of Game – The German Games Industry Association and brand owner of Gamescom, in a statement.
Gamescom Latam 2024 featured 17 content partners: Atari, Bandai Namco, CipSoft, Epic Games, Fellow Traveler, Frost Giant Games, Google Play, Gravity, Honor of Kings, Nintendo, SEGA, Square Enix, Supercell, TecToy, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games and Whitethorn Games.
“The first Gamescom Latam was a success. We are happy with the results. We delivered an event with great announcements, partners and the DNA of Gamescom, but also focused on the Latin American audience that was present at the event. For 2025, our focus is to improve and continue growing with the gaming industry on the continent”, said Pierre Mantovani, CEO of Omelete Company.
The event was also an important business hub: almost 2,000 professionals from 66 countries, representing 1,020 companies came to gamescom latam looking for opportunities for agreements and investments. In total, 11,982 meetings were requested and the expectation is of more than US$ 200 million in new business prospects. I moderated a session on AI and games at the event.
With 226 hours of content scheduled, Gamescom latam allowed participants to learn about the industry’s vision and its future with some of the most relevant international figures. Attendees were able to watch 194 sessions (62 were streamed) led by 434 speakers.
Featured speakers included David Alpert, producer of The Walking Dead and CEO of Skybound Entertainment; Chance Glasco, one of the creators of the Call of Duty franchise; Pawel Sasko, associate director of games at CD Projekt Red; Mike Foster, Senior Global Account Manager, Sony Interactive Entertainment; and Tim Morten, CEO of Frost Giant Games, among many others.
More than 314 communication channels from all over the world participated in the event, in addition to the Brazilian and international media partners who attended gamescom latam, such as IGN Global (USA), Gamerant (USA), Terra, IGN Brasil, The Enemy, Rádio Mix, PlayTV, Canal Woohoo, Meu Playstation, We Super OOH, 3D Juegos (Mexico) and Cultura Geek (Argentina).
From June 26 to June 30, 4 million people followed the event through live broadcasts, from the Gamescom Latam countdown to the panels led by industry speakers.
There were more than 400 titles of games to test and 81 releases across 25,000 square meters of exhibition space. Over 1,000 content creators participated as well as 25 media partners from three continents.
