Trade fair
SAGA Barcelona Game Fest 2026with Plataforma per la Llengua, ICOA and RetroBarcelona
Three video game fairs came together as one at Montjuïc, with Catalan as the official language and every talk available in Catalan thanks to Link3rs.
Three fairs in one
From 9 to 11 October 2026, Pavilion 1 of Fira de Barcelona’s Montjuïc venue hosted the first edition of SAGA Barcelona Game Fest. It was born from the merger of three events in the sector: BCN Game Fest, promoted by the Institut Català de l’Oci Alternatiu i Noves Tecnologies (ICOA); RetroBarcelona; and SAGA Saló del Gaming, run by Plataforma per la Llengua. Friday was aimed mainly at professionals, and the weekend at everyone.
Catalan was the fair’s official language, on the signage, in the broadcasts and on the stages. It had the support of the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the Generalitat de Catalunya and Barcelona City Council.
Japan, guest country
Japan was the first guest country. The main stage programme included talks and interviews with two composers of classic games: Miki Higashino (Suikoden, Gradius) and Manami Matsumae (Mega Man). On the first day, independent developer Rami Ismail gave a talk, and there were panels on setting up a studio, funding independent projects and diversity in the industry. In the business area, studios, publishers and investors met through the MeetToMatch platform.
Between games, visitors found a Nintendo area, more than 150 classic arcade machines, the Museu del Videojoc de Catalunya (MUVIC) with guided tours in Catalan, the My Famicase exhibition, with 250 illustrated cartridges brought from Tokyo, and esports tournaments.
What we set up
The organisers committed to a Catalan version of every talk and every part of the programme, and they relied on Link3rs tools to do it: Speech, to follow sessions in Catalan on attendees’ phones, and Captions, for the subtitles on screen.
As the newspaper Ara reported afterwards, those tools made all of the fair’s audiovisual content available in Catalan, and with simultaneous translation and subtitles, both the speakers in the talks and the tournament commentators could use their own language.
