Insight
ICE LONDON 2022 Clarion Gaming
So the show wouldn’t be labelled as a Hybrid show, but it will have elements that engage with a digital audience?
I think it is important to make a distinction between live events and online offerings as two completely different experiences. We can’t deliver the live event experience no matter what we do with the current technology. It’s about being human, and you can’t replicate that online. What we can do is deliver a different type of experience to a remote audience including elements of what it’s like to be at ICE. If we try anything else, we’ll over promise and under- deliver.
Are the original ICE initiatives still running, Ampersand and The Executive Network etc.?
Yes, we’re running all the original ICE initiatives. I love the concept of Ampersand, which I think is brilliant for sharing insights and Ewa Bakun, Director of Industry Insight and Engagement, does an amazing job pulling everything together. I think they are really useful for our customers to meet and connect, but they are especially important for Clarion to gain insight as to where we should be concentrating our focus.
As regards Te Executive Network, despite being dormant over the last 18 months we’ve been looking at how TEN can fit outside of our events and what benefits it can deliver for our customers in the future. TEN is a very effective way to have eyes and ears in the market and to support growth and development and in this case the recovery of the market.
Is the ICE agenda totally focused on the igaming and the sports betting sectors? What are the land-based initiatives that you’ve implemented and are you talking directly to the smaller land-based suppliers who are most worried by the postponements and changes?
Land-based is critically important. My P12 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS
“I think it is important to make a distinction between live events and online offerings as two completely different experiences. We can’t deliver the live event experience no matter what we do with the current technology. What we can do is deliver a different type of experience to a remote audience including elements of what it’s like to be at ICE. If we try anything else, we’ll over promise and under-deliver.”
background is the igaming sector and so to understand the land-based sector is of paramount importance to me. Not only understanding it as an industry, but the people, the nuances, what’s important and where are the challenges?
My time in the last five months has been dedicated to speaking to customers and industry veterans, asking them where we are going right and wrong. We have also conducted research with external companies to get beneath the skin of the sector to find out who is responsible for the buying process, where are the challenges, where are they finding new customers and where are those customers finding the solutions that they need?
We fundamentally need to know what Clarion can do as a business to support both the recovery and future growth. I think it’s even more important because land-based has been most affected over the last 18 months. My philosophy is that we need to be there in the good times, but it’s even more important to support customers in the bad times. If I’m not helping their business right now, then I shouldn’t expect support from this market further down the line.
Some of the initiatives we have announced include dedicated categories at Pitch ICE and hosted buyer programmes, which are 90 per cent focused on the land-based sector. We know that we must incentivise buyers who have supported ICE for many years, to make ICE a top priority once again. We need to support them financially, help them connect with the right people, organise their hotel stay and be part of the wider support programme for the land- based sector.
Te market is telling us that costs have become very significant and so we are announcing our ICE Charter. (Te ICE Charter launched two days following this interview, including: £500,000 investment in Hosted Buyer Programme; freeze on costs of exhibiting in 2022 and 2023, special team to negotiate hotel rates, discounts on IT and Web costs). We know that ICE is fundamentally important to the recovery of the land-based sector and we need to make it as easy as possible for buyers to attend the show.
We need to ensure there’s enough space for the land-based exhibitors on the show floor versus the online sector. And we must ensure the right exhibitors are in the right locations.
If rumours that ICE has become an igaming event persist on the show floor at ICE 2022, I’ll personally give guided tours of all the changes and investments we’ve made that are dedicated to land-based. If people don’t feel the that they are being listened to - especially the smaller companies - put my contact details into this article so that people can contact me directly -
Alex.Pratt@
clarionevents.com. It doesn’t matter if you are small or big - we are led by our customers as a whole.
Before the pandemic, the ICE brand was seeking to create regional events under the ICE umbrella. Has Clarion dropped these ambitions and returned to a single calendar ICE event or do you see the resurrection of ICE “geography” events in the future?
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