Next year’s ICE London edition is set to be a special one for the major gambling industry event, Clarion Gaming Managing Director Stuart Hunter tells Yogonet in an exclusive interview. With the gaming community ready to reunite once again, and as the pandemic is left behind, the expo prepares for a return to its traditional dates. Between February 7-9, ExCeL London will be the place to be in order to catch a glimpse of what the future of gaming will look like.
“I’m confident 2023 will be the biggest edition of ICE ever and I think the energy within the entirety of ExCeL London will simply be off the scale,” says Hunter. And things are looking thus far: Clarion Gaming is already projecting somewhere in the region of 3,000 product launches taking place on the show floor over the three days.
What is your assessment of how the gaming sector developed in 2022? What role did the latest ICE edition play for industry stakeholders within this context?
One of the insights that we gained from the awful experience of Covid and the global pandemic is quite how resilient and resourceful the international gaming industry is and how it has a unique ability to bounce back from adversity. Many of our customers were closed for the best part of two years which is why February’s full-scale return of ICE London is so, so important to us all. The industry has the opportunity to meet for the first time in 3-years and our ‘stronger together’ campaign message could not be more appropriate.
The April 2022 edition of ICE was a huge success and it was a wonderful feeling to return to live events but as good as that was nothing, absolutely nothing beats the return of all of the major land-based suppliers to what promises to be a historic edition of ICE held on its traditional February dates. I can’t wait for it, the team at Clarion Gaming cannot wait and from all of the positive registration data that we are seeing the industry cannot wait either!
This year marked a general return of in-person industry events, with some of them slowly starting to approach their pre-pandemic attendance levels. What is your assessment of the events lineup in 2022? And looking to ICE 2023, how is demand advancing thus far?
Speaking from an events industry perspective your assessment is 100% accurate: from an ICE perspective, I think the positivity is even more pronounced because of the nature of this industry. It’s an industry based on delivering a gambling entertainment experience. Our customers are not selling commodities – they are selling entertainment and you simply cannot do that via a video call.
Simon Collins, chairman of Jogo Global, who is one of the brilliant team members of ICE Ambassadors who share their knowledge and insight with me and the leadership team at Clarion Gaming, explained the beauty of ICE as being the opportunities it generates to bump into and meet with like-minded industry professionals who share the same enthusiasm and energy – you can only do that face-to-face and in a live environment. He also said that when people are travelling halfway around the world to be in London you know they are serious.
Demand for stand space has been sustained and intense; I’m confident 2023 will be the biggest edition of ICE ever and I think the energy within the entirety of ExCeL London will simply be off the scale.
Clarion held during the year events utilizing an Open Space model to create an agenda that reflects the issues that are important to industry businesses. Based on this, what industry topics and technologies do you expect to take centre stage next year?
My key objective is to continue to ensure that ICE meets the needs of the industry. We look to our ICE Ambassadors to provide their insight, we have an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders and we run a number of face-to-face focus groups which utilise the Open Space format which results in a customer-centric agenda. The market will determine the hot spots of demand which will be reflected in the make-up of the show floor and of course we can only supply space to organisations that are willing to make that investment!
However, when it comes to releasing the final tranche of stands, we cross-reference the show floor against the feedback from the research that we have undertaken with visitors. For example, customer feedback from 2022 has highlighted a host of areas where new product discovery is of interest, including social gaming, poker and NFTs, so this helps instruct our commercial account managers to explore new brands that plug those gaps, rather than simply accommodating existing demand. The ICE show floor has to reflect the needs of buyers and to have a balance covering all of the gaming verticals. ICE has flourished by serving the needs of the entire international gaming neighbourhood which it will continue to do.
ICE London’s Consumer Protection Zone
ICE London will be returning full-scale to its traditional February dates next year. What should we expect from the edition? Are there any new plans or announcements you could share with us?
As we’ve discussed, we expect a big and truly global attendance, a fantastic all-encompassing energy, a proliferation of new ideas, new connections, world-beating networking opportunities and, of course, the very best concentration of the most significant innovators and suppliers to all sectors of the international industry found anywhere. In fact, we are projecting somewhere in the region of 3,000 product launches taking place on the show floor over the three days.
I should also add that ICE provides a platform for companies exhibiting for the first time as well as for ambitious new start-ups. Our Pitch ICE programme offers up to 14 gaming entrepreneurs the opportunity to showcase their solutions and innovative approaches in front of industry investors and visitors attending ICE London. The successful companies secure a free-of-charge pod on the Pitch ICE Pavilion for the full three days of the show and a priceless opportunity to take to the ICE stage and pitch to potential investors.
We’ve got a proud track record of promoting start-up businesses helping them to make the connections that all businesses need. In fact, we have been providing start-ups with a gateway to industry investors and strategic partners since 2009, with many securing important investments and acquisition partners as a direct result of their pitch presentations.
In addition to Pitch ICE, the show offers a compelling and rounded experience with features such as the award-winning Consumer Protection Zone which will be the biggest in its history, the ICE Esports Arena, the International Casino Conference, World Regulatory Briefing, and the ICE VOX learning programme. It’s a packed and dynamic schedule delivering opportunities to connect and engage as soon as visitors make that short walk from the Elizabeth line at Custom House and through the doors at ExCeL London. It’s set to be a wonderful, and I think an emotionally charged, celebration of the global industry and an experience that’s not to be missed!
