ICE LONDON & IGB AFFILIATE LONDON POSTPONED UNTIL 2022

With the COVID-19 crisis still a long way from over, Clarion Gaming has announced the postponement of ICE London and iGB Affiliate London until 2022. 

The company says it took the “extremely difficult decision” following a customer consultation program and requests from its international community of stakeholders. The events had previously been postponed until the end of June 2021. 

Clarion says the next edition of ICE London will now take place at ExCeL London from 1-3 February 2022, alongside iGB Affiliate London from 3-5 of the same month. An expanded and enhanced edition of the flagship iGB Live! is still set to go ahead on 28 September – 1 October at the RAI, Amsterdam. 

Commenting on the news Managing Director of Clarion Gaming, Stuart Hunter, said:

“Both the ICE London and iGB Affiliate London brands have been successful because they have consistently worked with, and listened to, the needs of their respective customers.

“The soundings we’ve taken and the ongoing conversations we are having with exhibitors of all sizes across both events have shown continued and significant uncertainty about the year ahead. Exhibitors have expressed a desire to put the experiences of the last 12 months behind them and instead focus their collective energy and creativity into making the 2022 editions into memorable in-person celebrations.”

AYO.NEWS says:

Credit must go to Clarion Gaming for taking the hard, but necessary decision. The continual reshuffling of events dates by all iGaming and betting industry organisers has illustrated just how little attention they have collectively been paying to the progress of the COVID-19 crisis. 

It has been crystal clear for many months that, even with a ‘successful’ roll out of the numerous vaccines across many countries, the battle against the virus, with its constantly evolving range of variant strains, will require travel restrictions and social distancing measures to remain in place in most areas for many more months, if not years. The collective misreading of the situation by many in the industry (which has, it must be admitted, been encouraged by numerous politicians), is now verging on Ryanair levels of ignorance and/or cynicism. 

Optimism is one thing, but the truth is, until we have reached a “COVID zero” situation across most of the world, things will not get back to normal, and the continued push for the easing of restrictions and misguidedly dangerous schemes like the fundamentally flawed vaccination passports (flawed because even the vaccinated are not necessarily immune to different variants, immunity has been shown to be of uncertain duration, and it’s unclear if the vaccines stop people spreading the virus), is only going to prolong this crisis. 

The truth is that all organisers, everywhere, need to accept that until we have reached “COVID zero” they cannot expect to safely and responsibly hold mass events, and to pretend otherwise is making them look absurd at best, and downright recklessly irresponsible at worst. 

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