Put on ICE: how the industry is adapting to life without in-person events

My feet hurt. I really should eat something healthy today. Where the bloody hell is S8? Are we seriously drinking again tonight? That is what I would ordinarily be thinking during the first week of February while passing through a freezing-cold cloud of cigarette smoke to enter the automatic doors of ExCeL for another draining day full of drama and delights at ICE London.

My commute from North London to the outer reaches of the Royal Victoria Dock took well over an hour last year as I battled the city slickers at London Bridge and the bankers at Canary Wharf before boarding the DLR to my final destination. Those next to me on the train had come from much further afield, however, be it Macau, Estonia, Hong Kong or Peru, but we were all there for the same reason – to make the most of the gambling industry’s biggest annual trade show. Anticipation (and aftershave) was most definitely in the air.

For those who have never been, ICE is a city within a city and its sheer scale must be seen to be believed. Nearly 40,000 people descend on the ExCeL conference centre for three days to peruse more than 600 exhibitors on a 100-acre site that feels like the Glastonbury of gambling.

Unfortunately, though, ICE is not immune to the disastrous effects of Covid-19 that have plagued our professional and personal lives for a year now. In fact, it was exactly one month after the last ICE London in 2020 that most of us were sent home to work remotely. In the UK at least, it has remained that way ever since. The idea of indulging in a well-earned pint with friends or colleagues after a long day of meetings feels like a distant memory. And that’s because it is.

The dates for ICE 2021 were originally postponed to April and then June as the UK failed miserably to get a grip on the pandemic while the ExCeL centre was reinvented as an emergency Nightingale Hospital to try and ease the burden on the NHS. Fast forward to February 2021 and ICE has been postponed again, with event organiser Clarion Gaming confirming there will be no more ICE London shows until 2022 at the earliest.

Clarion made the difficult decision based on feedback from customers, many of which represent leading online gambling companies that pay for a stand at the event every year. ICE is the biggest B2B event in the igaming calendar, but will it be missed?

“It is one of the first conferences I’ve worked on where I think people will genuinely miss it,” says Pronet Gaming head of B2B marketing Dan Stone, who worked on four ICE London shows during a four-year spell with Clarion Gaming. “When ICE was rearranged from February to later in the year, there was a tinge of relief where people didn’t think their feet could take another one.

“But others would miss that major event in the calendar and it’s always good to meet up with old friends in the industry or with new people and prospects. Gaming is a close-knit community and the feeling is exacerbated by the fact we haven’t been able to socialise with anyone for months. Many were gagging for a get-together,” he adds.

Stone tells EGR Intel that ICE London took more than a year to organise and that planning for the next one was well underway before that year’s event had even begun. He was head of marketing for B2B events at Clarion under MD Kate Chambers. The pair formed part of a team that revolutionised conferencing by choosing to present them in a B2C format.

Changing tack

In 2021, Stone left Clarion for Pronet Gaming, a cross-vertical platform solutions provider that is targeting growth in Latam, Africa and Asia. ICE provides the perfect exhibition space for a company like Pronet to showcase its products and attract clients. So how are they bringing in new business with no conferences coming up? “There’s a lot more interaction from a solutions perspective with face-to-face events,” says Stone.

“With online events, people are after the learning and the content rather than solutions. It’s been a mixed bag and a bit of a balancing act and we’ve had to diversify, so we are building a quite expansive, targeted PR campaign,” he adds.

Stone has been seriously impressed with the Pronet Gaming team and is confident the business can flourish despite a pivot to online sales methods. But is business still getting done without the opportunity to attend trade shows and attract new partners?

“We know it is,” says Sarah Blackburn, unequivocally. Blackburn runs boutique marketing, communications and PR agency GameOn with her husband Andy. Under ordinary circumstances in the lead up to ICE, they would be helping clients assemble stands and organising interviews with the B2B press, as well as arranging corporate hospitality events in the evenings.

“On the supplier side, I think it might be a bit harder to get deals over the line because you need that face-to-face contact and a paper contract being signed,” Blackburn explains. “But for most of our clients and our business as well, we are thriving, and I don’t think that has been hindered by not being able to see people for a once-a-year meet up.”

Alex Donohue agrees. He works in a similar arena, having founded Press Box PR, a bespoke public relations outfit that prides itself on publicity powered by SEO. Donohue, formerly of Ladbrokes and LADbible Group, can often be found pounding the show floor at ICE. Despite this, he believes that the fat has been trimmed from the business process with conferences cancelled until further notice.

“We’ve signed several deals with clients the world over who we may never meet face-to-face, so in our case it’s no barrier,” he says. “If there is motivation on both sides, a deal will be done. I think the lack of face-to-face engagement, especially at trade show scale, means that business gets whittled down to where there is a genuine demand on both sides, or where there’s an existing pre-pandemic relationship,” he adds.

Nurturing existing relationships

Making the most of pre-pandemic relationships will be vital for igaming firms which could struggle to create new business opportunities. Digital fatigue is real, and while most of us abandoned Zoom quizzes and virtual get-togethers a long time ago, in business there is no other option. You have to imagine that handshakes and hugs will be long gone once the world emerges from its pandemic-induced shutdown, and societal norms will need to be reassessed, especially for mass gatherings.

Temporarily at least, the virtual world is all we have, but it can be hard to make the most of it. Slots studio start-up 4ThePlayer was founded in 2018 and exhibited at ICE 2020. The games creator works closely with Relax Gaming, Yggdrasil and Scientific Games, so did not have to pay for its own stand. The firm, founded by former Ash Gaming and Playtech veterans Chris Ash and Andrew Porter, used its extensive black book of igaming contacts to make immediate inroads in the industry.

The pair were soon joined by commercial and marketing director Henry McLean, who is grateful that the business managed to establish itself before the pandemic hit. He sympathises with start-ups which weren’t so lucky and that are now having to manage their ambitions. For 4ThePlayer, the focus this year has been on maintaining relationships virtually.

“We’ve been using every tool possible to chat to people,” says McLean, who is more accustomed to business meetings over breakfast in central London. “We’re big fans of video, which I know sounds cheesy,” he adds, revealing that he turns his camera on before every meeting. He says this encourages other meeting participants to turn theirs on and helps them to feel at ease.

“You can get better engagement with them eye-to-eye and we can see who we’re presenting to, rather than just some faceless screen. It’s easier to find a rapport because the biggest thing missing is the personal relationship-building, which is a problem when the key to development is that customer relationship.”

Despite championing video, McLean concedes it’s much harder to conduct business remotely. He describes pre-deal wining and dining as an essential part of the mix because it is vital to make a lasting impression in a business where top-tier operators work with more than 100 slots providers. He feels that is much easier to achieve in person.

Money maker

It is not just one-on-one business meetings that have had to transfer online. Indeed, the events themselves were forced to make an immediate pivot to virtual during a time where conferencing has become one of the most severely ravaged sectors by Covid-19.

Every cloud has a silver lining though, and igaming companies are able to make huge savings without forking out for the cost of a stand or flying their executive team halfway across the world. EGR understands the most eye-catching plots at ICE – think Playtech and Microgaming – cost more than a million quid, although ex-Clarion marketer Stone reveals the average ROI on a stand during his final ICE was £2.2m, which proves you’ve got to spend money to make money. “Just walking around, you can tell ICE is big money,” says Stone. “Whether you spend £10 or £10m on a stand, you still expect that ROI to come back,” he adds.

Stone said he found it difficult to replicate the buzzing social aspect of ICE for online, and most in the industry would agree that virtual drinks simply do not compute. At a traditional conference, people would rather hang around for a beer than retreat to their empty hotel rooms or jostle with nine-to-fivers on the tube, while a night out in London’s swankiest restaurants and nightclubs is an experience to savour for those who rarely get to visit the UK.

The loss of this year’s ICE was a blow for suppliers

Working from home brings about an entirely different set of circumstances however, and it is very difficult to justify spending even more time on the laptop for a virtual drinks ceremony when dinner must be made or the kids need help with their homework. That is not to say that virtual events are without their advantages.

GameOn’s Blackburn believes the switch to virtual events has made high-profile industry executives more accessible. Before, companies would have sent their C-level execs and their sales team to ICE and left everyone else in the office. Blackburn is grateful for the level-playing field. She says: “Think of all the different departments at a gaming company, from your graphic designers to your customer support staff. They are 10 years away from being invited to their first trade show. Now these people can ask a question on a webinar and have it answered, whereas they never would have had the opportunity or the face time to do that before,” she adds.

4ThePlayer’s McLean still isn’t convinced, though. He initially found it difficult to navigate virtual event calendar conflict as competing outlets discarded the unwritten rule of hosting on different dates in the race to put content online. “[Virtual events] would almost be better off as a podcast, in the style of a Ted Talks, but then of course they would be hard to monetise,” says McLean. “You have to work out whether to sacrifice the revenue or the content.” He adds: “For me at least it is really hard to engage in the same way, so I am eager to get back to face-to-face.”

Indeed, we all are. In Stone’s final study at Clarion, 70% of respondents said they were keen to attend in-person events again but would be happy to combine them with digital events. He said he can see a future where ICE is livestreamed around the world and the keynote discussions are made available online as people have developed an insatiable thirst for knowledge during the pandemic.

“Humans are social creatures, whether we like it or not,” he concludes. “There is a lot to be said about face-to-face business and body language. It all adds up to a completely different experience, one I think people are missing right now.”

Until that time, we remain in solidarity with Clarion Gaming and other companies in this industry that are reliant on events. EGR has not escaped these difficulties and we have also had to adapt in a dramatic way. In the meantime, keep on keeping on. I’ve no doubt we’ll see you on the other side.