Although Clarion confirmed late on Friday that it had signed a five-year agreement with show venue ExCel for its ICE Totally Gaming event in early February 2013, there is no sign that European Amusement and Gaming Expo will move its dates to co-incide.
The London shows, as things stand, will be separated by a week. EAG will run from January 29-31, 2013 and ICE Totally Gaming will start its three-day run on February 5. The EAG organisers confirmed last week that they had received no approach from the ExCel authorities to move their dates and there had been contact with Clarion.
Now the two sectors – amusement and low-stakes gaming in the case of EAG and all elements of gaming at ICE – will be separated by a few days at the same location.
The move by Clarion was inspired by news that work was to begin on construction in the car park area of its current venue, Earls Court in between the dates of the 2012 and 2013 shows. This effectively would make Earls Court unsuited to the purpose as many lorries are stationed there in between deliveries.
Some international publications have indicated that the two shows will run at the same time, as the amusement and casino sectors did up to three years ago at Earls Court. This is not the case, however, as there is no sign that exhibitors at EAG want to have their show at the same time as the ICE show.
The area which might cause some contention is that of ‘overlapping products’. There are some exhibits which contain equipment equally suited to both shows and this may be the subject of discussions between the two sets of organisers and the venue authorities.
