From 16th to 18th October, Warsaw's Centrum Expo XXI hall held the 7th annual International Salon of Entertainment - SUREXPO.
154 exhibitors (including 47 from abroad), 20 more than last year, and 2450 square metres of extra space speak for themselves. But the growing amount of stands isn't the only thing that shows the increasing role and prestige of the show. It's also important to look at the growing number of visitors, the quality and size of the stands and the large offer of displayed machines. It's the first time such diversity has been seen on the show.
The exhibitors, for the main part, were companies from the polish AWP sector, grouped into the Chamber of Commerce of Entertainment Equipment Producers and Operators. The Chamber and Interplay Magazine were also the co-organisers of the show, which was once again organised by WIGOR agency from Wroclaw. The representatives of the aforementioned groups made the grand opening. A meeting of the Chamber was held during the show, along with a symposium about playgrounds and the first meeting of the Polish Pinball Association.
The biggest stands on this years Surexpo were built by: Nowogames S.A. (awarded), Novomatic along with the polish branch of ATT S.A., Eurocoin Poland with Suzo Poland and Grand (awarded), Vegas, Synot Polska (awarded), Fortuna, NowoProject, Gamesystem, PMG Play, Red 5 and Magic Play. Aside from companies from Western Europe ones from Ukraine and Russia also showed up (namely Odrex and Belatra).
The show was dominated by products from the AWP sector. Beside the western-made ones, a lot of polish produced machines were also shown. AWP's like the Silver Shark and Black Horse Gold from Vegas, both of which had their premiere at the show, Gamesystem's Laxus (awarded), Gametek's City and Game Keeper and Promatic's Casino Multigame. Obviously all these firms have also shown new games made for the polish AWP market, which will most likely record another raise of revenue and become the second player in Poland, right behind slot-machine arcades. Everyone in the trade agrees that the Polish market can easily be home to around 100,000 AwP machines, whereas now there are only 40,000. That obviously means the opportunities for development of the companies from this sector are enormous.
Among foreign AWP's the most prominent was, as in previous years, Novomatic's Hot Spot. This year we received yet another new version of this program named Hot Spot Platin. It is worth to note that the father of it's success is a Pole, Ryszard Presch - a long-time worker and a member of Novomatic's management. There were also other AWP's at the show from companies like: JPM, Barcrest, Merkur, Bell-Fruit, Apex and Errel.
Although slot-machines and roulettes were in dominance at SUREXPO, a large role was also played by companies from the amusement sector. As usual there was an abundance of strength meters of all kinds. Jakar, Dawpol, Magic Play, Magic Play, Kalkomat, Kriss Sport, Kidmann, Kupper Automaty, X-Line, I.P. System, Joker, WaldBob and Eurogames all have shown their products.
Premiered at the show were: hammer machines from Dawpol made especially for breweries, as you can imagine, in beer bottle shapes; J.B. Harry's Old Cabrio kiddie-ride; new pinballs from Stern (Appearing in Poland for the first time in years), China-imported kiddie rides, automatic basketball machines, hammers and carousels. An interesting thing was the soccer table made by Roberto Sport especially for the disabled (awarded) offered by Euro-Tech and the Street Pitcher baseball machine shown Vita's stand.
On the topic of awards, there was much less of them than last year, and they were competed for only by those who applied before the start of the show. The jury was composed of representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, Interplay magazine and UDT (Association of Technical Experts of Entertainment Machines). Aside from the already mentioned awards, the jury also appreciated reel machines from A-Games company and outdoor air-hockey WiK production.
There were also spare parts distributors on the show. Suzo, Comestero, Game Center, E-Service/Novo Parts, WH Münzprüfer all had their stands. Other companies that had their stands were Vizio and Eurotronic (AWP cabinet producers), WiK, Euro-Tech and Vita (both makers of billiard and air-hockey tables) and lots of vending machine producers from all-over Europe. Inflatable were represented by VIV, albeit only on banners. There was also a surprising amount of firms showing GSM control and management systems for gaming and vending machines like K.O.S., Nowoproject, Gamesystem and Vegas.
Of course, a lot of trade magazines from Europe and the World showed up. As usual, dancing shows were held during the exhibition, which is slowly becoming sort of a tradition for SUREXPO. Dance formations V6 and tancerze.pl performed on-stage. Bogdan Wolkowski showed off his skills on WiK's stand. A dart cup sponsored by Interplay was held on the last day. A lost of Polish companies began sponsoring boxing. And this time, instead of the famous Polish boxer machines, we were able to see real boxers visiting the stands of their sponsors.
There are no official statistics yet, but it was clear that the show was visited by much more guests than in previous years. SUREXPO is definitely becoming the biggest amusement trade show in this part of Europe. Especially since Czech, Slovak and Hungarian exhibitions loose their importance. If only our politicians would stop messing with the Gaming Act and resign the idea of additional payments for the gambling industry than we could be sure that the show will take up both halls of Warsaw's Expo XXI Centre.
News Story with thanks to Waldemar Banasik, Interplay Magazine. Please visit
www.interplay.pl for others.
