You'd want to ask - What about those times where all three halls of the Industry Palace were full, and the amount of visitors only from Poland could be counted in hundreds? To se ne vrati as the Czech's say. And so, the 16th World of Entertainment, which took place, as always, in the Industry Palace on the exhibition grounds (Vystavište) in the Praha 7 district, between the 9th and 10th of April was spent mainly pondering whether or not it should be continued in the future.
One hall, only 40 exhibitors, mainly from Czech Republic and a bleak prospects for the future. This is what's left from a show, that was the leading amusement trade show in Central Europe in the late 1990's and early 00's. World of Entertainment Crisis begun last year, when a couple of the key exhibitors got enough of the high prices for the exhibition space and decided to do their own thing. A similar thing happened this year.
The absent at the World of Entertainment, potentate on the Czech market Synot organised their own show in the nearby Veletržni Paláce. Synot's boss, Ivo Valenta informed us of another important thing concerning the WoE - "The Czech's don't need two trade shows. That's why I chose the cheaper of the two, the FORBES in Fall", he said. What's even worse for Zdenek Kočik (WoE organiser) is that the competition moved FORBES to the... Industry Palace. But let's leave all the quarrel in the Czech gambling industry behind and get back to the main topic, the exhibition.
Yes, it was small, but the organisers have to be applauded for placing the stands in such a way, that it created an illusion of the whole show being much larger. The stands were moved away from the walls, and the alleyways were narrowed. Trade show organisers, watch and learn how the Czech's do it.
The absence of the aforementioned Synot and companies like Novomatic, Play and Win or Sazka was noticeable. These companies used to have the biggest stands on the exhibition grounds. A lot of foreign exhibitors also didn't show up. The only Polish company on the exhibitors list was FOX Group, but they were unable to come. And so, the only Polish company there was Nowogames from Korfantów, which was showing its products on it's Czech partner's - W.G.S.'s stand. There were also two Polish accents, consisting of a glass-case showcasing Comestero Polska products on Autogames', and Vegas' machines on Victoriaplay's stand. The stands of other foreign companies could be count on the fingers of one hand. As usual the Austrians from TAB and Funworld have shown up along with money holding companies like SUZO, ICT and VTI. There were also Russians from UNICUM and the Chinese from JYUEE ANG.
For a trade show that has "entertainment" in the name this one had a very small amount of it. Amusement machines were nowhere to be found. Czech are really thoughtful when it comes to such things. Why show something that no one is interested in? So the whole exhibition was devoted to Czech gambling machines. The biggest of the gambling stands were: Autogames, Bonver Win, Kajot, Jamp, Comax, Income and the Czech Errel. Czech are seeing a real boom for videolotteries. Jamp was showing the newest products from Barcrest - Triple 7 as VLT. Other companies also had these kind of machines in their offers. Apex had Multi Magic, Comex had Lottery King and Rio Games had Amatic's VLT. Other companies that had shown their own VLT were: Kajot, Autogames and Errel.
Traditional gambling machines are methodically pushed out from the Czech market by double-screen video gambling machines with multigames on-board. These kind of machines were in the offers of every company on the show. It's worth to mention Vegas's Black Horse shown on Fair Play Trend's stand, Nowogames' Novovision on W.G.S.' stand and the made for the Polish market machines from Royal Play. Touchscreens, which are increasingly less popular in Czech Republic, were brought to Prague, as usual, but TAB and Funworld from Austria. The latter did came to a conclusion after seeing the sales charts and decided to broaden their offer with a real redemption hit, a Stacker.
Despite efforts from the organisers, this years World of Entertainment was a definite disappointment. If Ivo Kasal manages to organise a bigger and much more prestigious exhibition (FORBES) in the same place then Zdenek Kočik can start packing his bags.
News Story by Waldemar Banasik courtesy of Interplay. Please visit
www.interplay.pl for others.
