Dau Barcelona, a board game festival in Fabra i Coats

On the 14th and 15th of December, the creation factory Fabra i Coats will host the second edition of the board games festival, Dau Barcelona, with a packed programme of activities especially oriented towards adults and those specialising in this subject.

Among the many activities, this year’s festival features a 24-hour Scrabble championship as well as competitions featuring both popular and lesser-known games such as chess, carcassone, ligretto and enigmarius.

There will also be two areas especially dedicated to two spectacular game genres that boast a multitude of followers but which not well known by the public in general: historic simulation games (or war games), at the hands of specialist club Rubicon, and role-playing games at the hands of game expert Jonathan Delgado and the Kritik club.

The venue will also have a section dedicated to crosswords in commemoration of the centenary anniversary of the world’s first crosswords, which were published in a New York newspaper on the 21st of December, 1913. La Plataforma per la Llengua (Catalan language platform), on the other hand, will be organising a game centre in an attempt to raise the visiting public’s awareness about the many available Catalan games and toys.

On Friday the 13th of December, in the Palau de la Virreina, the festival will hold the Dau Barcelona prize-giving ceremony which will be transmitted in streaming via the website www.bcn.cat/barcelonacultura. One of the prizes has already been awarded to the German editor Edwin Glonnegger for his professional career and in recognition of his having been “the first person in the international board game industry to realise that game editing is a creative task and, as such, the role of the authors in both fundamental and irreplaceable”.

Two further prizes will be awarded during the ceremony: best author and best new author of 2013.