With huge queues, Japan’s big indie game festival, BitSummit, just smashed its attendance record
BitSummit has grown 77% in two years
Japan’s most popular indie game festival, BitSummit, saw a record number of visitors in 2026, organizers have announced.
This year’s show, which was held in Kyoto earlier than its traditional July dates, recorded a record total attendance of 68,208 people last weekend, which represents a 17% increase compared to last year (58,065).
Compared to the 2024 event (38,333), BitSummit’s audience has grown by a significant 77%. Japan opened its borders to foreign visitors in 2023, following several years of pandemic lockdown.
BitSummit 2026 featured 125 general exhibitors selected from approximately 550 entries from around the world, 78 corporate exhibitors, and a total of 496 exhibitors, including board games, special devices, and game jams.
As media partner for the event, VGC crowned the winner of our own Media Highlight Award, which we gave to the game that we most enjoyed on the show floor.
VGC’s Chris Scullion awarded the prize to Sloppy Forgeries, a comical competitive painting game. A full write-up explaining our pick will follow later this weekend.
You can catch up on our impressions from the show via Chris Scullion’s daily BitSummit reports, in which he shares impressions on his favourite indie games at the show.
“BitSummit has become increasingly popular with each annual event, and the huge queue of attendees snaking right around the Miyako Messe exhibition hall in Kyoto was evidence that this year’s show was surely the most well-attended yet,” he wrote.
2027’s BitSummit will again take place in May, between the 21st and 23rd.
