2. LFG Hof Convinces With Political Program and Tabletop Cooperations
– 2 min read
Double the space, double the politicians: Fabian Mehring as well as County Council of Hof Oliver Bär visited the growing LFG in Bär’s hometown Hof this weekend. The event has positioned itself as a Franconian nexus for games, especially with a prestigious card game collaboration.
On Saturday, 17 May, the second LFG Con in the Franconian town of Hof commenced. Again situated at the Freiheitshalle, the convention this time doubled its exhibition space in comparison to its first year, occupying the full hall, the corridors and the adjointed ballroom.
The young convention is part of Bavaria’s emerging games event scene, but unlike the GG Bavaria that went into its third year in 2025, the LFG Hof is not a centralised event organised by the state itself. Instead, LFG has been made possible by Flowdust CEO Ariane Pollak and her team, in cooperation with the town and county of Hof as well as the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung. “There is a lack of such events here in the region, although the demand for them is very high”, Pollak said in an interview to GamesMarkt when the first LFG was announced last year.
The demand was indeed high, not only with the consumers: Partly due to the special interpersonal connection of Hof to German Federal politics, more politicians were present at LFG than usual. A regular at all Bavarian games events, Fabian Mehring, Digital Minister of Bavaria, was County Council of Hof Oliver Bär, husband of the current Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space Dorothee Bär. And naturally, Hof Mayor Eva Döhla represented the co-organisers from the town at the event.
While the official numbers are not yet released, GamesMarkt estimates from on-site put the convention strongly over last year’s premiere of 2,300 people at the single day event. Not least because LFG has managed to offer a very unique cooperation for the trading card and board game space: Two of the official Destination Qualifier tournaments for Magic: The Gathering, co-organised by the vendor Games Island, have been held at the LFG from 10:00 to 20:00 o’clock, bringing about 200 competitive players as well as several influencers and spectators into the Freiheitshalle ballroom. The Qualifiers are part of a tournament series that can lead as far as to the European Finals. The cooperation is strong and unique selling point of LFG that bolsters its importance for the tabletop space especially – a field in which the convention has found quite a bit of a stronger hold than similar events like GG Bavaria, for example.
The indie game studio turnout was, in comparison, relatively modest: About eight studios from the region presented their games at playable stations, among them Emergo Entertainment and Blossom Path Games from Bayreuth and NeoBird from Nuremberg. Esports and civil organisations on the other hand were on site plentily: From PlayPink and the co-organisers of Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung to Munich eSports as well as a dedicated retro corner by RetroGamesCon, for example.
The next LFG Hof is already announced, taking place 13 June 2026 at Freiheitshalle again.
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