Last year’s ICE Totally Gaming at London’s ExCeL felt like a watershed moment – for the first time, the UK show seemed to eclipse all other global gaming events. Attracting visitors in their thousands, the 2013 edition of ICE brought together every facet of the gaming industry under one roof. Looking ahead to next month’s edition of the show, Clarion’s Kate Chambers tells InterGame what to expect from ICE 2014.
InterGame: The 2013 edition of ICE Totally Gaming was deemed a success across the board – what were you most proud of? 2013 was a hugely important year in that we relocated to our purpose built, modern new home at ExCeL and as part of that we also moved dates to February. The business case for moving was irrefutable in that ExCeL meant that we could expand and meet the demand for space from the international gaming community, that we could provide exhibitors with the ability to represent their brands in a professional and appropriate manner plus, of course, it removed all of the uncertainties which were part and parcel of being at Earls Court. However not everyone embraces change and I think that our communications campaign became the dominant narrative and we succeeded in recording our third consecutive increase in attendance with an audited 22,247 unique attendees participating in what has become the world’s largest gaming event. Added to this we had more people staying for longer with the average visit duration standing at just under two days per visitor. While I appreciate that events such as ICE are much more than a numbers game, it was pleasing to continue that upward trajectory in attendance set against the changes I outlined and of course the state of the world economy.
How did the venue change benefit the show overall? ExCeL is modern, it has clean lines because it’s purpose built and it has the standard of business facilities that our stakeholders expect. All of these are important but in addition because we are not venue bound we can talk with our exhibitors about their plans for the future with confidence that we can meet them and hopefully exceed them. Essentially it gives us the ability to implement our development plans which will take what is already the world’s largest gaming event to the next level. Read the full article in the January issue of InterGame.
