Lots of intriguing manoevring this week over trade shows. With news that its main lorry assembly area at Earls Court coming under the bulldozers between the 2012 and 2013 shows, Clarion has moved quickly to try to pin down ExCel for its ICE '13 venue. It is having to go for a slightly later date,

Lots of intriguing manoevring this week over trade shows. With news that its main lorry assembly area at Earls Court coming under the bulldozers between the 2012 and 2013 shows, Clarion has moved quickly to try to pin down ExCel for its ICE ‘13 venue.

It is having to go for a slightly later date, perhaps beginning as late as February 5, a week after the European Amusement and Gaming Expo, but needs must. The problem is that BACTA has an exclusion clause in its contract with ExCel, preventing certain overlap products from being exhibited at ExCel for a period either side of its show.

It is all now down to whether the ExCel authorities will keep to its contract with BACTA (Clarion is, after all, a major player in the trade show business and must put plenty of shows into ExCel annually), and whether the exclusion clause can be overcome. That means Clarion and BACTA sitting down and talking.

While everyone should of course do what’s best for their own businesses commercially, let’s hope that they all remember the key to this: the visitors. To a man they hate the traipsing from one side of London to the other between the two shows. Co-habiting will suit everyone, even if Docklands doesn’t quite have the social infrastructure of the West End.

And the real issue, of course, is that Clarion is looking over its shoulder at what the Americans may be doing….Reed runs G2E for the American Gaming Association, and that partnership has undisguised ambitions to rule the world. They already have North America, South America and Asia. Europe is another prospective jewel in the crown and it has already gone on record as stating (rather arrogantly?) that it plans to take over Europe. Clarion, if it plays its cards right, could seize the high ground for 2013 and who can blame it?