There is something I feel uncomfortable about where IAAPA is concerned. Difficult to put my finger on it; but visiting their EAS show in Gothenburg, Sweden, recently, and even more recently the IAAPA show itself in Florida, has again left me with the same discomfort.
The Orlando show had all the stats. Nine miles of aisles, 125 product categories, 525,000sq.ft, 1,000 exhibiting companies, 28,000 visitors from 100 countries of whom 18,000 were buyers; 100 education offerings in its seminars, a global industry worth US$39.5bn and an expo value to Orlando itself of $51.3m.
All very impressive. All carefully put together by a clutch of statisticians working out of the IAAPA press department. They even put on a press office at the show beyond that found anywhere else - computers, phone connections, a constant supply of coffee, cold drinks and pretzels (which some folk unaccountably like)...
But I remain uncomfortable.
Why, I ask myself? For such an impeccable organisation to run such an impeccable show with ultimate professionalism, why should I feel uncomfortable?
It is probably, I have decided, that IAAPA is just too damned strong. Even in our coin-op sector it has elbowed out one annual US exhibition and even the remaining independent show pays homage to the Orlando event. It now has the premier Asian event, the Asia Attractions Expo (Shanghai, China, in June) and several years ago took over the Euro Attractions Show (in Barcelona, Spain, next year).
It pretty well has it all then and has started holding events around the time of the DEAL show in Dubai, which currently it doesn’t have a grip on; so one can at least say that it is hovering around a very lucrative regional event that would look very good in its "trophy cabinet".
IAAPA does, however, do a good job. No-one can contest that, although it remains very much an American show and organisation in its make-up, character, ambience. Even in Europe; even putting on a brave face to choosing Gothenburg (nice city) for its 2015 EAS. Whatever IAAPA says, most of the exhibitors confessed that they were only there in order to keep their foot in the door for the Orlando event.
All the wrong reasons, surely, from both sides?
I still don’t understand how IAAPA got hold of the European show anyway. It used to be independent, run by a group of the major ride manufacturers, and let’s face it, all of the really significant ride manufacturers these days are European, mostly Italian. Why did they roll over and surrender control of their show?
So there we have it. World domination (almost) of the rides and attractions business by one organisation. Is it good? You could equally argue, is it bad? I don’t know, I just feel uncomfortable about that much control in one set of hands. I would feel the same if our friends at Clarion Events in London, who run ICE Totally Gaming so well for the casino, gaming and betting industry, was also to take over G2E in Vegas and the gaming show in Macau.
Too much, too much.
