EiG 2015 kicked off at Arena Berlin today with the online gaming B2B community returning to the German capital for the second year.
With more than 1,800 registrations on the first morning, this year’s event took on a familiar form within the industrial grunge of Berlin’s leading rock venue.
The main conference spaces in the centre of the hall were packed from the off, with standing room only available for the keynote presentation from William Hill chairman Gareth Davis. The move to Berlin saw the conference spaces moved into the middle of the floor and acoustics at the back-to-back conference areas have been improved.
In 2014, some delegates left the conference area slightly bemused by the waiting exhibition, not quite sure what was expected of them. This year, there’s no confusion with conference attendees happy to add to the footfall - and the whole event is the better for it.
EiG moved to Berlin from Barcelona in search of a new identity and there is a sense that both exhibitors and visitors are becoming at ease with the new format - it is a place for doing business away from the high-octane carnival of ICE.
Employing a sporting analogy, Clarion’s Jo Mayer perhaps best summed up the new EiG: “People at EiG work hard but they also have time to think. They have time on the ball and they like that.”
