My attendance at Gamescom was once again for business, and I didn't have much spare time, but I did manage to pop by very quickly and say hi to ED, his booth/space was very cool and had a lot of people there whilst I was there. Certainly one positive I drew from Gamescom as a whole was the number of females there, it didn't feel like it was 50/50 split, but things have come a long way over the years from when big gaming events would be 99% men (and to be honest, even this year, at GDC, if you go to the programming intensive talks, it would be a huge majority of males).
There were a lot of people (males and females) doing cosplay, as usual, and a lot of them were really cool. But the heat in Cologne was intense (this is coming from someone who lives in the UK, so take it with a pinch of salt) so I felt a little sorry for some people wilting in the sun whilst waiting outside/at the train station in the bigger costumes. Although I didn't complain, as one evening, we got a train out to one of the oldest beer gardens in Cologne, so having the nice sun was pleasant!
As we were attending for business, we used a separate entrance to the halls, which doesn't really have a queue, but we walked past the main entrance, and it was amazing how many people were waiting to get in (there was also a really good atmosphere in the queues from what I could see, a sort of buzz). I didn't see any 'trouble' of any sorts whilst there, it was somewhat bizarre to see a lack of police/security, sadly, in the UK, I can't help but feel there would be a lot more problems/trouble with so many people in a small space (especially with the heat). Anyway..!
Something that has struck me each time I have been to Gamescom is how huge the event is, if you walked around all the possible floor space in each room/hall it'd probably take a couple of hours. I was averaging 10 miles of walking per day, and that was just getting from meeting to meeting.
I hope the event was successful for ED and ultimately generates more business for him!