ATEI 2008 - Polish Boom?

ATEI 2008 - Polish Boom?

17 Polish companies, 18 taking ICE/ICEi into consideration, took part in the show which ended on the 24th of January. Other journalists from all over the globe told me that this phenomenon was a true "polish boom".

And that's not only because of the amount of stands, the new products also mattered. With the gambling trade in a standstill, a lot of new products shown on ATEI were there thanks to the Polish companies. Polish companies are definitely "elbowing" themselves into the trade and it was them who have shown the most completely new products during the expo.

Of course all new products will be described by us in details in the magazine, but we can not pass up the opportunity to mention the well-designed and made American Football from Kalkomat, Karate Brick Heavy Grip or Gym Master from Kriss-Sport, I.P. System's American Football and Baseball, Ritter's digger, Kidmann's Kid Rider, Magic Play's Magic Iris and Juka's Eko Gantry.

Gamesystem was the only exhibitor that decided to go with the already awarded presentation from SUREXPO. It looked like they hit the jackpot because most potential clients coming to their stand thought their are literally in heaven when they saw their dancing angels. Jakar and Vegas were amongst the ones who were proudly displaying the SUREXPO award on their stand. Who knows, maybe there is suddenly competition growing for ATEI in Poland? After troubles for Czech, Hungarian and Slovak trade shows, SUREXPO is steadily and consequently developing.

The presentation of the machines has definitely gotten better. Jakar did "drown" their automatic basketball in a water bath to show it is water-proof, just like they did at SUREXPO. WiK didn't want to be worse and placed their new water-proof air hockey named Shark under a shower of alcohol. If the companies will try to out do each other in "pouring" fluids over their products, then soon blood might be shed over machines.

The market is saturated with products and during the exhibition in London was a battlefield where companies fought for, and in some cases even with, clients. And as the first statistics given by the organisers say, there were a couple percent less buyers this year. My impression is that there were even 30% less people than in previous years. Maybe it's because of the overheated situation on the market or maybe not everyone wanted to use the escalator to Level 1, because if you believe statistics ICE and ICEi which were held on on the ground level broke all records.

The growing amount of space in Earl's Court taken by the gambling industry each year caused that people from outside of the trade weren't let in on the last day of the expo. In the past years the youngsters playing on machines were the "fake crowd" and were upping the attendance. This years it was much quieter. After taking over the organization of the exhibition by Clarion from ATE, you can clearly see that Clarion haven't yet got an idea for making the show subservient to both buyers and exhibitors. Having much more experience in the amusement trade, due to its roots in the British operators union, ATE under the helm of Peter Rusbridge did much better. Clarion as a company uniting many experts specialising in the field of organising exhibition should re-think their politics on this specific trade.

News Story by Waldemar Banasik courtesy of Interplay. Please visit www.interplay.pl for others.