Expo guide · Sat 31 Oct 2026
G-STAR 2026 at BEXCO: Korea's biggest game show, and why you cannot buy a ticket at the door
Korea's biggest game exhibition fills BEXCO in Busan from Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November 2026. Public tickets cost 18,000 won for adults and 8,000 won for youths, they are sold online only, and each day's sale closes at midnight the night before. The rules, the record indie showcase, and how to plan the weekend.
What you need to know, in short
The G-STAR 2026 exhibition is Korea's biggest game show, at BEXCO in Centum City, Busan, from Thursday 19 to Sunday 22 November 2026, with the public halls open all four days. Adult tickets cost 18,000 won and youth tickets 8,000 won, and every ticket is sold online in advance: there is no box office at BEXCO, and the sale for each day closes at midnight the night before. If you read one section of this guide, make it the ticket section.
Korea's biggest game show
G-STAR is the Korean game industry's annual shop window, organised by the Korea Association of Game Industry and run by the G-STAR Organizing Committee. The public exhibition, marked BTC on the official pages, spreads across both of BEXCO's exhibition centres. Exhibition Center 1 holds the big publisher booths and hands-on demos; Exhibition Center 2 carries the indie showcase, a game culture festival and a sim racing experience run by Hyundai Motor. The trade hall (BTB) runs Thursday to Saturday alongside it and the G-CON conference sits across the first two days, but neither asks a ticket decision of a public visitor. What fills the four days is unreleased games, stage programmes and the demo queues everyone will be talking about into next year.
The indie showcase is the record breaker
The number to know this year is 114. On 28 October the organising committee unveiled Indie Showcase 2.0: Galaxy, the largest indie programme in the show's history, with 114 companies taking part on the first floor of Exhibition Center 2, 109 of them in the showcase itself, and partners including Devolver Digital, Unity and the European Games Developer Federation. The tie-up that changes it is with Steam: a G-STAR 2026 special promotion page on Steam carries the show's games to players who never leave home, while a Steam Deck demo area runs on the floor with hardware partner KOMODO. Devolver Digital is even giving an unannounced game its first public demo here. For visitors the practical effect is simple: the indie floor is no longer the quiet corner of the show, so plan time for it.
Tickets: there is no door sale
Here is the rule that catches people out. G-STAR 2026 public tickets are sold 100% online in advance, through the official G-STAR website and app, and the committee states plainly that no on-site sales will take place. There is no ticket window at BEXCO to fall back on. Sales opened on 29 September and run until 23:59 on Saturday 21 November, but the deadline that matters is per day: each date's tickets can only be bought until midnight (24:00) the night before that date, so a ticket for Sunday has to be bought before Saturday ends. Tickets are tied to the date you choose and cannot be swapped at the door, and each person can buy at most two tickets per day.
Prices are 18,000 won for adults and 8,000 won for youths, the youth rate covering anyone born on or after 1 January 2008. If you book at the youth rate, carry proof of your birth date (a passport, student card or youth card): staff can ask to see it, and the discount, or entry itself, can be refused without it. On the day, your booking is exchanged for a wristband at the exchange desks before you go in, so allow time for that queue, especially on Saturday and Sunday. Doors open at 11:00 on the Thursday; ticket checks close at 17:00 and last entry is at 17:30. Disabled visitors, people of national merit and preschool children enter free, collecting a pass from the information desk, which opens an hour before the doors.
Making a Busan weekend of it
BEXCO sits in Centum City, in Haeundae-gu, a few minutes' walk from BEXCO station on Metro Line 2. Two stay bases make sense. Centum City itself puts you within walking distance of the halls, which matters when the day ends at half past five and the demo queues have had your feet since morning. Haeundae, a short ride along Line 2, trades the walk for the beach: the show weekend falls less than two weeks after the Busan Fireworks Festival lit up Gwangalli, and the beachfront makes a natural pairing for a games weekend that finishes early each evening. Both areas are covered on the hotels page. Sort the room when you sort the ticket: with every visitor in the city working to the same midnight deadline, this is not a weekend that rewards leaving either to chance.
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