Gamescom boss says it’s prepared for security breaches like Opening Night Live stage invasion
The head of Gamescom has discussed security at the flagship games event, amid a high-profile stage invasion that took place during its Opening Night Live presentation.
Shortly after the show started, host Geoff Keighley was interrupted by a man who attempted to speak into his microphone, repeating “Bill Clinton wants to play GTA 6” several times.
The situation echoed a similar invasion at Keighley’s previous show, The Game Awards 2022, when a member of the audience joined the FromSoftware team on stage as it collected an award for Elden Ring, before grabbing the mic and shouting out references to his “orthodox rabbi Bill Clinton”.
Speaking to VGC this morning, Gamescom head Christian Baur explained that the safety of participants and attendees is of great importance, and that security was prepared for the possibility of a stage invasion.
“Our security measures have increased over time and we’re trying to make the whole experience as safe as possible for everybody who attends,” Baur told us. “[It’s not only about] people who are stage-crashing, we’ve also had issues with creators who were walking through the halls with their communities dragging along behind them, breaking things.
“We’re very specific and very clear about ‘this is our playbook, if you want to come to Gamescom these are the rules and you have to play along, otherwise you can’t come, or you shouldn’t come, or you will be removed from the place’. We’re very transparent about that, and that’s not even concerning those high-risk situations like yesterday at Opening Night Live.
“In the end it was good because the intention of the person was just something silly but, of course, if somebody with bad intentions would have tried to do the same thing, that was a big risk.
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