The International Casino Exhibition (ICE) which took place at London’s Earls Court on 22nd – 24th January, has grown for the eighth year in a row. This year’s exhibition, according to organisers Clarion Gaming, attracted a record number of 12,972 visitors.
The figure is made up of 10,111 visitors as well as an extra 2,861 visitors to the co-located remote gaming show ICEi. This represents a 7.9 percent increase in visitors on last year.
A further 6,960 buyers from the co-located ATEI (soft gaming expo) are also reported as visiting ICE - meaning gross attendance for this year’s show was 19,932.
British as well as overseas visitor levels both grew, with overseas visitors rising 1.5 percent to 7,337 and domestic visitors rising in numbers up to 18.2 percent on last year for a figure of 5,526 visitors.
Visitors came from across the world, from no less than 115 countries. This is five more than last year, with the Marshall Islands, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Tuvalu and US Minor Outlying Islands all being represented by visitors for the first time. If you include some of the ATEI cross-overs – visitors were represented by 127 countries. This means the exhibition is a truly global event.
Growth was recorded across continental regions and the most rapid of this growth was the Far East/South East Asia where visitors rose 18.8 percent on last year from 231 to 284. Visitors from the Middle East and North Africa increased by 11.2 percent to 198, with continental Europe seeing its visitor numbers rise 2.4 percent to 5,663 and Southern & Central Africa up 1.5 percent to 134.
Excluding British visitors, the United States remains the country with the most number of visitors. It had 501 visitors, an increase of 2.7 percent on last year. A 14 percent rise on last year meant that Austria were in second place in terms of visitor numbers.
There was a big rise in the number of Swedish visitors, up 25.6 percent to 457 visitors making Sweden the third largest country of visitors. Germany were fourth with 447 visitors, Slovenia fifth with 392, Spain in sixth place with 387, closely followed by the Italians with 385 visitors, then France with 381, the Netherlands with 294 and Malta with 221 visitors.
Karen Cooke Clarion Gaming’s Head of Exhibitions said, “ICE and ICEi continue to demonstrate their huge appeal to operators from every jurisdiction in the world, whether land-, cruise- or remotely-based. Much of the credit for the attractive powers of the show must go to the exhibitors who year-on-year continue to surpass themselves in the depth and breadth of their innovative displays.”
The date has already been set for next year’s ICE. It will be held on 27th – 29th January 2009 at the same venue, Earls Court.
