Cologne, Aug 26-30, 2026 (Opening Night Live Aug 25)
A brief by GIFQ, the payout and rewards platform
Gamescom 2026 is sold out. Attention there isn’t.
Every square metre of exhibition space is booked for the first time in the fair's history, which means roughly 1,500 exhibitors competing for the same footfall. This is the brief we put together for teams we know going: the dates that matter, the numbers behind the crowds, and the reward mechanics that actually pull people to a stand - whoever you are at the fair.
357,000
visitors in 2025, a record
128
countries they came from
1,568
exhibitors in 2025, 70% from abroad
70,000+
trade visitors expected in the business area
72M
Opening Night Live views in 4 days, 2025
Sold out
all 2026 exhibition space, a first
357,000 people from 128 countries came in 2025. This is what a record year looks like from inside Koelnmesse.
Whoever you are at the fair, there’s a play here
GIFQ is one account for buying, sending and reselling gift cards, prepaids, game top-ups and crypto payouts across 5,000+ brands in 90+ countries. What that means depends on which badge you're wearing.
You ship games and run communities
Publishers & studios
Reward playtest cohorts, beta communities and UGC contest winners in one order - players pick their own brand, in their own country, and a EUR 5 thank-you is as sendable as a grand prize. Nothing to ship, nothing stuck in customs, no bank account needed for a player base that skews young.
You run brackets and owe winners money
Esports orgs & tournament platforms
Prize pools pay out across every border in the bracket: each winner gets a link and takes gift cards, prepaids or crypto in their own currency, at any amount. One CSV covers up to 1,000 winners; the API covers the rest. Prize liabilities land in a ledger instead of a spreadsheet.
You pay talent and run giveaways
Creators & talent agencies
Pay creators and their communities without collecting bank details: rewards and fees go out by email or link, recipients choose how to take the value, and small amounts clear without fees eating them. Giveaway prizes for a stream run through the same account as talent payouts.
You resell game credit at volume
Top-up platforms & marketplaces
Source Steam, Razer Gold, PUBG Mobile UC and e-pins from several suppliers through one API - each order routes to the cheapest source with stock, and the saving reaches your price. Stated rates, no personalised margin, no unpublished FX.
Your users accumulate balances
Earn apps & offerwalls
Put 5,000+ brands behind your cash-out button with one integration. Low denominations mean a few euros is redeemable rather than stuck behind a threshold, and regional brands mean a user in Jakarta gets something they can actually spend.
Your players hold tokens
Web3 & crypto gaming
Give a token balance somewhere to go that isn't a bank: players spend it on gift cards and digital products in their own market, straight from your product, through one API. You can fund your own balance in crypto too.
The week at a glance
Gamescom is really three overlapping events: a developer conference, a trade fair and a public festival. Where you spend the week depends on which one you came for.
Aug 23-25: gamescom dev
The developer conference formerly known as devcom, at the Confex centre on the fairground. Around 220 sessions and 390 speakers, plus its own matchmaking - for many studios the deals happen here, before the fair opens.
Photo: RAWdz Ivan, CC BY 4.0, resized Aug 25, 8 PM CEST: Opening Night Live
Geoff Keighley's two-hour showcase, streamed free on YouTube, Twitch and Steam. It drew 72 million views in four days last year, and in-person tickets are long gone. If you are timing a community campaign to one moment, this is the moment.
Aug 26: Trade and media day
Wednesday belongs to trade visitors and press. The business area runs Wednesday to Friday, with 70,000+ trade visitors from 100+ countries expected and matchmaking through the gamescom biz platform.
Photo: Sergiy Galyonkin, CC BY-SA 2.0, resized Aug 27-28: Public days begin
Doors open 10:00 to 20:00 Thursday and Friday. Friday is also the business area's last day - meetings you have not booked by then move to the aisles.
Photo: RAWdz Ivan, CC BY 4.0, resized Aug 29-30: The record weekend
9:00 to 20:00 both days, with Saturday the peak of the whole fair - gamescom content drew more than 630 million views on the 2025 Saturday alone. Saturday day tickets are priced above the other days and tend to sell out.
Photo: RAWdz Ivan, CC BY 4.0, resized
The scarce resource in Cologne is not space. It is attention.
A sold-out floor sounds like good news until you are standing on it. Two hundred and thirty-three thousand square metres, around 1,500 exhibitors, and a visitor who can physically reach a fraction of the stands in a day. Most booths at gamescom are ignored by most attendees - the question is what makes yours the exception.
The honest answer is usually not the booth. It is what a visitor gets for stopping. Merch runs out and t-shirts get binned in the hotel, and anything physical had to clear customs first, which matters when 70% of exhibitors are shipping in from abroad. A digital prize has none of those problems: nothing to freight, nothing left over, and it works for the visitor from Jakarta exactly as well as the one from Cologne.
Six giveaway mechanics that work at a fair like this
None of these are theory - they are the standard attention mechanics of large trade fairs, adapted to a crowd from 128 countries. All of them can go live in days, because digital prizes skip production and shipping entirely.
The booth prize draw, minus the customs forms
Run the classic draw - play the demo, spin the wheel, beat the time - with digital gift cards as the pool. Codes deliver instantly by email or link, so an international exhibitor ships nothing to Germany and takes nothing home. Steam, PlayStation and Razer Gold make the prize legible to a gaming crowd in one glance.
A small guaranteed reward beats a big raffle
For lead capture, a EUR 5 card for every badge scan outperforms a console raffle one visitor in ten thousand wins - people queue for certain. Low denominations exist across most of the catalog precisely so a guaranteed-reward mechanic stays affordable at fair volumes.
Creator prize pools
Creators running meetups or streams at gamescom must register 14+ days ahead, so the ones attending are locked in and planning content now. Seeding their giveaways with prize pools puts your name in front of their audience during the highest-attention gaming week of the year.
Community campaigns timed to Opening Night Live
Follow, share and UGC contests spike when the whole internet is already watching - ONL pulled 72 million views in four days last year. Winners get a link and pick their own brand from their own country's catalog, so one campaign serves an audience in 90+ countries without a prize matrix.
Meetings that actually get booked
The gamescom biz platform handles matchmaking for the business area, and everyone's calendar fills by Friday. A small thank-you reward attached to booked meetings is a cheap way to lift show-up rates on the three days that matter.
The team, afterwards
Fair teams spend five to eight days in Cologne between dev, the fair and the evening circuit. A thank-you card in each person's own currency, sent the Monday after, costs little and lands better than another branded hoodie - and it goes out from the same dashboard as the prizes did.
The prize wall, preloaded
The names a gaming crowd recognises in one glance, sitting in the same catalog as 5,000+ other brands across 90+ countries - so the winner who would rather have dinner than DLC is covered too.
Check the catalog before you commit to a mechanic
See every brand we carry - 5,000+ brands across 90+ countries, including Steam, PlayStation, Razer Gold, PUBG Mobile UC and the regional names your visitors actually spend in. We'll send the full list over.
Gamescom 2026, answered
Doors open August 26. A giveaway can be live before they do.
Digital prizes skip production, shipping and customs, so two weeks is plenty: pick the brands, load a balance, and your booth draw, badge-scan reward or creator prize pool is running - delivered instantly, in each winner's own market. Leave your email and we'll help you set it up in time.
Would rather talk it through? Talk to one of us directly.