GDC organiser says it “hasn’t seen” cancellations from overseas visitors, attendance “tracking in line with expectations”

GDC organisers Informa have said they have not seen any drop in planned attendance by overseas visitors, despite escalating industry concern over both costs and the current US political situation.

Alongside perennial complaints about the cost of attending the event, there has been a rising clamour in industry circles around harsh immigration enforcement and the recent killing of two US citizens in Minnesota, leading to many overseas professionals being reluctant to put themselves and their employees at risk. The issue was a recurring talking point among attendees at Pocket Gamer Connects in London last week, with Mobilegamer.biz reporting that many companies were sending fewer staff or avoiding the show entirely.

In an interview GDC Executive Director Mark DeLoura conceded that the GDC team was “hearing the same stories,” but when asked if that was having an impact on ticket sales said that “we’ve not seen that yet.”

“One of the great strengths of the show is that it’s an international show,” he said. “I think it’s like 30% of people typically are international attendees. So we definitely want to see them come because it benefits all of us to have this global conversation.”

“One of the things that we did this year to try and help was launch the content calendar a little bit earlier so people could have more time to work on visas and things like that. We’re all looking at the world too and thinking, “What’s the best way for us to continue to have a global conversation?” So we hope everybody will come this year.”

GDC conference director and Head of Content Ashley Corrigan said that attendance was “tracking in line with expectations,” with “some regions that are up, some that are down.” She cited the number of international pavilions that will be on the GDC expo floor, which has been redesigned this year as the “Festival Hall”. It will contain stands from Brazil, Portugal, Costa Rica, Germany, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Chile, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Wales.

“We do also have a number of scholarship programs with different organizations, nonprofits that represent developers and game professionals from all over the world. The LATAM organization is there, and obviously the IGDA, which is an international organization.”

Complaining about GDC remains an established industry tradition, but a number of UK and European publishers have told GamesIndustry.biz they will not be attending. The show’s controversial decision to rebrand from Game Developer Conference to GDC Festival of Gaming also received lukewarm response.