With a new venue and a new set of dates, ICE Totally Gaming will be seeking to build upon the momentum generated by last year’s edition of the show.
After much debate and speculation about the future of the ICE gaming show in London, the situation for this year at least has been resolved. For the first time, ICE Totally Gaming will this year be staged in February at ExCel – a venue now familiar to those in the amusement industry. From the outset, organiser Clarion has been confident that the move across London will not slow the momentum built in recent years and in fact, in December the company announced that 99 per cent of available floor space had been sold. It is estimated that the show floor will cover 31,000sq.m and feature more than 400 exhibitors, making it the largest gaming industry trade show on the calendar.
“Our marketing theme for 2013 has been ‘think big’ and I’m delighted to say that the creative we have been running through international media channels has lived up to the reality of what visitors will see at ExCel London when the doors open on February 5 for the first edition at our new home,” said Kate Chambers of Clarion.
ICE 2013, she said, will be “bigger and better than ever before” and is now “essential” for anyone involved in the online and offline gaming and betting industries.
“The key reason for attending ICE,” she said, “is the assembly of absolutely stellar companies which are exhibiting at ExCeL – you can’t get any better than that.”
Although there are of course rumblings of discontent about the two big London shows being separated by a few weeks, rather than just a venue, ExCel is undoubtedly the better location for a trade show of this size. It certainly creates fewer logistical problems for exhibiting companies and less ‘obstructions’ for visitors than Earls Court. Evidently the change in venue has not deterred the industry from choosing to take space at the event so the sheer scale and variety of the exhibition ought to pull in visitors in their thousands.
Recent editions of the show have illustrated that Europe is dealing head on with the issue of convergence between the various forms of gaming, whether land-based or online, in a way that has been clearly lacking at other shows, such as G2E Las Vegas in the US, for example. The trend suggests that this year will see providers offering their content across the gambling spectrum, with those in the traditional AWP space moving into VLTs and online, and casino and online companies moving the other way. This convergence is likely to gather momentum as the legal barriers currently in place are challenged and ultimately overcome. Several gaming companies are already pushing content that is accessible on the gaming floor, at home and via mobile devices.
That’s not to say, however, that the show will soon become merely a platform for software sales. Each year new styles of cabinets and other gaming equipment are launched at ICE, designed based on new ergonomic research or with a new type of venue in mind. Payment solutions are a core part of the exhibition and, with the wider proliferation of gambling around the world, security is an increasingly important priority for today’s operators. Again, there is convergence here, this time with technologies – online reporting, mobile devices, ticketing etc.
It remains to be seen what the effect of moving the show to February will have – my guess is it will be as well attended as previous years, given the quality of exhibitors and the new venue. ICE continues to be the launch pad for a host of new companies, products and technologies and so remains an important stop on the trade show calendar, wherever it falls.
This article can be read in full in the January issue of InterGame.
