With one London show out of the way – EAG, and therefore the amusements side of the industry – and another about opening - ICE, and therefore the gaming sector - it would be easy to run comparisons on the two. The only common ground these days is that they are both held at ExCeL.
The annual whinges about the old ATEI/ICE combined shows at Earls Court and the perpetual reinvestigation into "returning" (impossible) or finding an alternative to the supposedly long trail on the Docklands Light Railway to ExCeL are also declining.
The message might at last be getting through: there is no suitable alternative to ExCeL, and the DLR isn’t nearly as long a trek as some try to suggest.
And combining the two shows? Illogical. The two disciplines of the leisure industry have, if anything, grown further apart. The gradual dominance of i-gaming in the gambling business is threatening to distance itself even from the land-based industry! That might well happen in time; right now the connection between the two remains sustainable.
The only problem with ExCeL is the rip-off prices charged by on-site hotels during a show. Despite the tepid justification of the anti-DLR brigade, it is undoubtedly handier to walk to the show rather than change trains and platforms at Canning Town. Not justification, in itself, for demanding a change of venue.
I can think of infinitely more preferable places to be than Docklands in early February, but the exigencies of the service and the provision of frantically-generated material for ICE Show Dailies, precludes thoughts of warmer climes.
Once there, ExCeL excels and ICE refreshes the parts other trade shows don’t reach. It is all things to everyone. The street market is largely now camping out there and AWPs stand side-by-side with casino slots, VLTs and i-gaming software.
It therefore delivers. Period.
