“The huge investments they have made in the last 12 months in their facilities and infrastructure, the upgrades to the Docklands Light Railway and Jubilee line [of the London Underground], the Olympics legacy, as well as their close proximity to London City Airport mean that ExCeL is the right venue to enable us to meet our ambitions to further grow ICE and our international audience,” said Julian Graves, managing director of Clarion Events, which runs the expo.

Many event managers favour Earls Court and its nearby sister venue Olympia because of their proximity to Heathrow Airport and easy access to London’s Tube network.

Until recently, ExCeL was less well-served by public transportation. That may, as Graves says, be changing but the new location will still place ICE some distance from both Heathrow and Gatwick, the main airports serving passengers from beyond Europe. London City and the comparatively easily-reachable Stansted, however, provide ample service to the European continent.

Intriguingly, the five-year deal with ExCeL means ICE is likely to be using the same venue as EAG Expo, the amusements show which takes place on similar dates to ICE, managed by Swan Events and linked to the British trade body BACTA. It’s not clear whether the two plan to run simultaneously or sequentially; either way, both could benefit from crossover attendance and easier logistics for exhibitors trying to reach casinos as well as the amusements sector.

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