We are the Merz Verlag, organizer of the world’s largest visitors fair for boardgames SPIEL Essen. Our small team organizes the whole event and invites about 1.000 exhibitors and well about 150.000 visitor from all over the world to Essen into the heart of the Ruhr area. From working with the exhibitors, planning the halls, coordination with the fair, media and visitor communication, awards for special games, ticketing and much much more, we at Merz Verlag take care of everthing regarding SPIEL Essen.

When planning and organizing the show we always keep in mind to show the multitude and diversity of the gaming world, as much in the games at the fair as with the exhibitors or the accompanying events. Gaming is colorful and done together, which is what we stand for as well. Respect for each other, getting along well, and inclusion are as important to us as fun and games.

We want to present an event to all our guests that brings together the whole world of games and lets everyone have a great time. Always at the core of SPIEL was and will be the basic idea of our founder Friedhelm Merz:

Everyone can come to us and test and buy the games at the booths.