Cardmarket is all about bringing trading card fans together, not just via our platform. We also like to meet our community face to face. That's why we're running a booth at SPIEL in Essen where you can get a bit of the Cardmarket experience in person. Make a deal and trade one of your cards for one of ours. Share the exciting moment with us when you open a booster pack and find out how valuable the cardboard inside really is. We have the info, we have sweet cards to swap with you, and we have packs for you to crack!
All of the following activities take place at the Cardmarket booth and are open to any SPIEL attendee, completely free of charge! Some terms and conditions apply, but for the most part you just need to show us your Cardmarket account. (So we can track that ideally everybody gets one fair chance on each day of the fair to participate in certain activities.) Here's how to SPIEL, the German word for both "game" and "play"!
Mystery Swap (Pokémon)
The regular, online version of Cardmarket allows you to pick your perfect card from among millions of offers and to sell any surplus cards all over Europe. The Cardmarket booth at SPIEL, however, features our Mystery Box, which is more limited (in particular limited to one use per user every day) but may end up more exciting! Give us one of your Pokémon TCG cards you no longer need, and you get to draw and keep another Pokémon TCG card from the same price bracket. (€50 is our highest tier here.) We of course check your original card's price on Cardmarket first, check the price of your new card, and make sure the exchange is fair or favors you. (We got Cardmarket coupons.)
"pack cracKING" (Magic/One Piece/Yu-Gi-Oh!)
Are you often lucky when opening boosters? Become our leader of the packs in Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and/or One Piece! Come get a free booster pack (no more than one for each game each day) and crack it. We check the value of your biggest pull, using the average price on Cardmarket, and compare it to the value of everyone else's biggest pull from that day and game. If you make it into the Top 5, we list your username, your card, and its value on our leaderboard for the respective game.
If you stay in this Top 5 until the end of the day and then join us with your card for our big winner announcement, you can claim an additional, even bigger prize! (Check back at 18:30 CEST from Thursday to Saturday and at 17:30 CET on Sunday.) Follow us on social media for the grand prize details to be revealed later!
Show Us You're the "Leader of Packs"
It doesn't matter if you open a valuable card and make it onto one of our leaderboards or trade into something stellar at our Mystery Swap. Every card you acquire can be cause for celebration. The real wins are the friends we meet and make along the way. So celebrate your victory in style at our photo booth! Pose for a picture with your best pull of the day, whether by yourself, with a buddy, or in a group, and maybe have some fun with the props we have on hand. Post your photo on Instagram and tag @cardmarket_community because we love to see happy TCG fans! (Happy TCG fans are indeed what our company aims to produce.)
Pokémon fans in particular take note: Do you want to meet, greet, get a picture with, or a card signed by the famous ZeroOfTime? Then you may want to plan your trip to our photo area specifically for Saturday, October 24. Because spending most of SPIEL's opening hours (albeit with nonzero time for breaks) at the Cardmarket booth happens to be TheZeroOfTime's plan for this day!
Complete Our Survey & Stamp Rally
There's one more activity for you to participate in and one last challenge for you to conquer. If you're up for it, get your stamp rally card at our booth (while our limited supplies last) and don't lose it. It allows you to collect a stamp from our staff whenever you first take part in one of the five activities mentioned above. (To recap: Crack a pack for each of Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and One Piece, post your photo and tag our community account on Instagram, and trade a Pokémon card at our Mystery Swap.)
The stamp rally card also comes with a QR code that leads to a little online survey and with a sixth spot to be stamped when you show us you've completed it. You can of course take the survey regardless, to help us make Cardmarket better for you! However, if you manage to get stamps for all six activities at any point up to 12:00 noon on Sunday, there's a €10 Cardmarket coupon as a bonus for you (while supplies last).
We hope to see you at SPIEL. Our team is looking forward to it!