All change for London trade show landscape
In January 2010, a challenger presented itself to ATEI, the longstanding amusement trade exhibition that takes place annually at London’s Earls Court. Adrian Lennox reports
THE inaugural European Amusement and Gaming Expo, which took place at London’s ExCeL Centre on January 26-28, established itself as a viable alternative to the incumbent ATEI, attracting a range of theme park - and FEC - related exhibitors from the UK and wider European market. Although the BACTA-endorsed EAG had positioned itself as a primarily UK event,
several world theming and amusements groups - including Sacoa, Bernd Wolter Design, Triotech Amusement and Embed - chose to exhibit at the breakaway show. Indeed, many theme park, FEC and amusements companies present at the expo had
migrated from ATEI, as the iconic Earls Court event continues to place increased focus on the ever-converging soft gaming, casino and online gambling sectors. When asked to provide his impression of EAG 2010, Gilles Ravel, marketing director
for Triotech Amusement, said: “It was a really successful show. Sharing the same booth as our European partner Sega leveraged the synergy between our two companies. We had the chance to display several products from the Typhoon to XD Theater, our flagship product. Although based in London, EAG is an international show and Triotech is an international company. We had some promising contact with potential customers outside the UK.”
Shifting sands
Over recent years, ATEI has been experiencing a drop in visitor numbers. Yet despite
this, the historic exhibition benefited from a positive atmosphere in 2010 - attendance was up year-on-year as the UK and wider amusements industry continues to draw itself out of a protracted recession. However, it seems the new make-up of the London trade show scene may require a
settling in period, as it was apparent that some foreign visitors were unaware of EAG’s existence, in addition to ATEI’s change in sector focus. “We found that, in the end, the setting up of two different exhibitions has generated a
real disorientation among lots of visitors,” said Luca Serafin, president of Luca Srl of Italy. “We were at both exhibitions and found that the EAG has had a good success for what concerns our business. Of course, we had a real less quantity of visitors in ATEI due to the new exhibition. We think that in this way we are obliged to exhibit at both shows in order not to waste some possible customers - but that also means spending a lot of money.” Despite the increasingly crowded European exhibition landscape, many present at
EAG expressed confidence that the show could eventually grow to encompass a wholly European, even global ideal. “Looking to the future, EAG is going to be quite an important amusements show that
will be on everyone’s radar,” said one UK-based exhibitor. “It will very possibly expand to represent Europe in the future. It’s easy to get to London and I met visitors from all over Europe, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy.”
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Sven Neumuller of Bernd Wolter Design GmbH Justin Burke of Sega Amusements Europe Ltd Pol Mochkovsky of Sacoa Ian Mottershead of PMS International Group PLC
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