What It Takes to Run iGaming’s Biggest Expos, With Clarion Gaming’s Alex Pratt

[00:00]  1. Intro: Welcome to Bet It Drives

Host:  Welcome to Bet It Drives, the show that takes you for a ride through the iGaming world. I’m Eugene, and on today’s ride you’ll hear no scripts and see no stage, just real talk on the road. Let’s go.

Guest:  All right. Okay, I’m ready.

[00:34]  2. Meet Alex Pratt (Clarion Gaming, ICE, iGB)

Host:  This morning we’re stepping into the world where gaming meets real-life experience. Big events aren’t just lights and crowds. They take planning, pressure and a personal touch, and no one knows that better than Alex Pratt, the force behind Clarion Gaming, ICE, iGB Affiliate and iGB Live.

[00:55]  3. iGB Live vs ICE: which one wins?

Host:  Alex, you host both iGB and ICE, but for you personally, which one do you like better?

Guest:  That’s not an easy question. It’s like choosing between your children. If I’m really honest, it would be iGB Live. ICE is a beast, but iGB Live was something I created, under another name, a long time ago, and it’s been on such a journey. It’s been a bad child and a good child, and at the moment it’s thriving. I’m happy to see it grow. But don’t tell ICE.

Host:  And ICE is moving to Barcelona already.

[01:31]  4. Moving ICE from London to Barcelona

Host:  I’d be asking the obvious question: how did it go? Was that move successful?

Guest:  Yeah, really successful. Moving ICE was a massive challenge. It had been in London for over 90 years, so moving it to Barcelona was huge. Not only moving a legacy brand, but the sheer size of the show. It was a new venue, new city, new rules, new customers. A big job, but the size, the scale and the atmosphere were way beyond what I was expecting. It was both a shock and a pride moment for everyone in Clarion, because it worked. If it hadn’t, it would have been a different story.

[02:14]  5. The most underestimated part about running events

Host:  You’ve done it many times, Alex. What’s the most underestimated part of running shows like this?

Guest:  It’s the bit that goes on behind the scenes. I’d run a lot of events before we sold to Clarion, but they were 3,000 to 5,000 people. When you go up to the size and scale of ICE, and iGB Live is now at that size too, the amount of work that goes into building those shows is just insane. There’s something like 3,000 different suppliers on site during that period. And that’s 10 days of building. Ten days before everyone arrives, our team is already on site, out there 23 days in total from build to end. None of us see that part. It’s hard work and long hours, mainly the operations team, but they love it.

Host:  The backstage always stays unseen, at least to some. But have you seen any drama?

[03:11]  6. Wild stories: racing camels, emus, bunnies and Mikey the poker-playing chimp

Guest:  I’ve certainly seen a lot of drama in front of the scenes. A few years ago one of the operators brought racing camels to ICE. Real camels, and famous camels apparently. You see it on TV but not in real life: small robots ride the camels, mainly in the Middle East, and we had a brand offering betting on it. That was one of my predictions, actually.

Host:  It’s also a sport.

Guest:  It is a sport, and I predicted it would be massive. It wasn’t. Camel racing and streaming, I got both wrong. Anyway, with any live animal they start to go to the loo, and they did that across the whole purple carpet, so that wasn’t so good. The following year a brand called Emu Casino asked to bring emus to our small affiliate conference in London. We said no to that one. People have brought bunnies too. In America some of our events have had armadillo racing. Lots of weird stuff. In the old days there was a brand called Poker Share and Casino Share, and they taught a small chimpanzee called Mikey to play poker. It would lift the cards and recognise a good hand. All it knew was to go all in. We had Mikey at a lot of our events, so you could play against him. He went all in and took every one of my chips straight away. Not the first time I’d lose to a monkey. He wore a nappy, because he’d go to the loo and throw it at you if you didn’t have one on. They even tried to enter him in the World Series of Poker. Caesars owned it at the time, and there’s a huge correspondence online: they said he can’t come because he’s under 21, and the reply was that a monkey’s age is different. Mikey never got to play, unfortunately, but it was all over the place, Good Morning America and everything. A brilliant publicity stunt.

[05:30]  7. Business focus: how stand space is decided

Host:  Let’s move into the business side, Alex. How do you decide who gets what space?

Guest:  We have a system now, but when I first started I’d never run an event in my life. Originally I’d just say to everyone: I’ve got a floor plan, I’m emailing it at 1pm on this date, and the quicker you reply the quicker you’re in. First come, first served. That worked quite well. Then a few years later, because it had grown, we crashed our own form because too many people hit it and kept refreshing. Then Clarion bought us and said, “What are you doing? This isn’t normal.” We weren’t rebooking people on site, and we said we don’t need to, they book about two months out. They thought it was ridiculous, no forward bookings of revenue. Moving to Barcelona gave us a chance to relook at it, so they created a complicated points system based on how long you’ve been with us and whether you support other products, which might put you in the VIP section. The irritating thing is the positions people choose often aren’t the best. Some are ego-led rather than business-led. People think the front of the show is the right place. But this year at ICE we ran a lot of heat maps using the Wi-Fi tracking, and the busiest place was right at the back on the left, because everyone went in, made their way to the back, and then decided where to go.

Host:  Over the years you’ve gained so much experience it’s hard to even evaluate.

[07:27]  8. Acquisition rumours

Host:  We sometimes hear rumours that you’re already in an acquisition process.

Guest:  Clarion Events Group is owned by Blackstone, so effectively we’re always for sale. We’ve been with Blackstone seven years this month, so we’re probably towards the end of that lifetime. I don’t think they’re commenting on being in an active sales process. I just think we’re always for sale, and we’ll see what happens. It doesn’t tend to change things, it’s just a different investor.

Host:  These uncertainties can sometimes harm you.

Guest:  If you’re solid on who you are, a commercially driven organisation, then someone acquiring and investing may not disrupt your operations. If we were a struggling business it would be nervy. We went through the sale when Clarion bought us, so I’ve seen that change. It’s more about people who haven’t been in a process before, particularly in large private equity. Clarion’s massive now. A buyer isn’t going to come in the next day and change everything. It’s working really well, we’re leaning into technology, experience and customer, and if and when we get acquired again, they’ll be buying it because of that strategy. So I don’t think anything will change, at least I hope not.

Host:  Sounds like a positive move.

Guest:  It’ll be exciting.

[09:15]  9. A fresh way to stay relevant and tech partnerships

Host:  Markets are getting saturated, and you need to upgrade formats and transform a little. What are the fresh ideas, and how do you bring them forward?

Guest:  With ICE the whole focus is scale: how do we scale globally? Moving from London to Barcelona totally changed the composition of attendees. Whereas 40% used to be from the UK, it’s now 16%. We retain the companies, but they send fewer people, and suddenly our Spanish, Italian, LatAm and Asian audiences all grow. There’s also a big focus on adjacent segments and bigger technology companies. We’ve partnered with a lot of associations, and one I can mention: Microsoft are now doing a big hackathon with us. Part of our role is representing the industry and helping expand it, creating innovation and the conversations around regulation. Companies like Microsoft work with all these gaming companies and in the past might have been hesitant to talk about gaming. It’s our job to show this is the business of entertainment, there’s a lot of money, and it’s a technology business. Getting those companies in to innovate and create product is exciting for us.

[10:55]  10. Esports as an adjacency

Host:  Our recent talk with Rohini Sardana touched on entering the esports arena, which I think is a good adjacency.

Guest:  We have the esports arena at ICE. It’s not massive, but it’s totally unique, you don’t see it at other events. We run a live tournament with professionals and pretend betting. It helps the market understand there’s a lot to learn from the technology and game design, and more than that it’s a channel for marketing. It’s a product that can be bet on, and it’s another way to view gaming.

Host:  I agree.

[11:39]  11. Advice for start-ups entering events

Host:  The interest is always on the big players. What about the small startups?

Guest:  I’ve found for years that they feel they need to smash a load of money on the biggest stand and be the brightest star. Actually, the lifetime value of a new exhibitor who doesn’t buy media is two years. If they buy media, it’s about five years on average. They think: I’ll spend all my money on ICE, everyone will know me, the leads will come in. It doesn’t work like that. This industry is about trust, long-term relationships, being known. I’ll almost say: keep 90% of your money. Especially if you’ve got a good product, people will talk about you. Yes, have a presence in some shape or form, but really it’s about relationships.

[12:42]  12. Long-term presence vs flashy stands

Guest:  A stand always looks cheap when you only look at the price of the space we sell. But then you’ve got to have someone on it, that’s your time, opportunity time for meetings you might not otherwise have. There’s the cost of building it properly to reflect your reputation. If you’ve got something complicated to explain, can a stand do that? You’re probably getting three seconds of someone’s time as they walk past. So sometimes it’s not the right thing to start with. If you’ve got enough money, yes, but combine it with media, PR and building relationships, because people introduce people in this sector. You’ve got a much bigger chance attending some events and conferences.

Host:  And if you can speak, even better, and if you can negotiate footage, cut it up and put it on social, create material for the whole year.

Guest:  All good ways to get noise out there. It’s about longevity. I’ve seen people come making all the noise and in a year they’re gone. People are used to seeing that. So it’s much more about sticking by the product, building relationships, and remembering it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

[14:10]  13. Feel the beat: Alex’s music picks

Host:  We all like music. Imagine iGB is over and you’ve settled down. What song would you want to listen to?

Guest:  I’ve got a whole playlist on Spotify called Happy Songs. Someone told me once to make it, and when you feel down you put it on and it makes you happy. I just love The Greatest Showman, so I’d listen to something like “This Is Me,” the alternative version.

Host:  Walking up the conference floor, what’s the energising song?

Guest:  I think it’s “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.

Host:  A classic.

Guest:  It gives you the energy, coming in like a machine. Maybe a bit too hard.

[15:20]  14. Coolest booths and secret stands

Host:  If something comes to mind, Alex, what are the coolest booths you’ve seen?

Guest:  I’ve seen some amazing designs. The ones that impressed me, because they were so detailed and built by someone who doesn’t normally build stands, were Bodog’s. I remember meeting the guy making them, an interior designer who said he didn’t even know why he was there, he’d never done exhibitions, but they’d called him online. The best one was an entire ski lodge with a burning fire, double-decker, with an après-ski bar. Really cool. But for me it’s the small experiences people create. The guy who invented video poker had a stand at G2E. He put a curtain around it, a small stand with a little sign that said “VHS Repair Studios,” with a load of video recorders outside. Apparently if you stepped through, it was the most luxurious experience. If you knew, you knew. A secret stand within a stand.

Host:  Talking about panels, if you had to ban one type of panel, what would it be?

[16:53]  15. Panels Alex would ban forever

Guest:  Two things I’ve banned. One is people introducing themselves on a panel. It’s annoying and uses up so much time. The other is what we call “manels,” all-male panels. The world has moved on, and unless you encourage your content team to look further than the obvious, usually a stale white male like you and me sitting on a panel, you get it wrong. We’ve tried to ban them for a few years, but they still exist, and you get caught out now and again. Usually someone internally flags it and we correct it straight away. But it still exists everywhere.

[17:49]  16. Who should be banned from attending events?

Host:  Are there types of attendees you’d like to ban?

Guest:  I don’t know if they come from a certain segment, but it’s the people who come up like the LinkedIn version of spam. Immediately: “What geos do you work in?” They don’t even know I’m the event organiser, straight into the pitch, and as soon as you say “I’m not that,” they’re gone. They’re not about relationships, they’re like robots.

Host:  Automated scripts.

Guest:  The other one is professional exhibition attendees. They’ve got nothing to do with your sector, often retired, coming down for free stuff because they have time. They come every day, for hours, to all the shows.

Host:  To do what? Get free bags?

Guest:  Free bags, talk to people. You forget how much people love a bag and a lanyard.

[18:48]  17. Bingo: the most memorable afterparties

Host:  Alex, we have this little bingo section. What are the most memorable things from the afterparties?

Guest:  The biggest memory was back in Dublin, when iGB Live was called the iGaming Super Show. We had the “Seven Deadly Sins” party for Calvin Ayre’s 50th. Luckily he’s a billionaire, so it was the biggest, most crazy party I’ve ever been to, and it was interactive: each room you went into was a different sin, so you can imagine. Years ago there was a brand called BetBull, I think, just launched. We were in Budapest and their brand ambassador was David Coulthard. We were a tiny event, and David Coulthard came, spent the day, went out for dinner, spoke, and then they ran the most insane party at a castle that everyone was invited to, competitors and all. Just brilliant memories, some great nights out.

Host:  That’s what we notice too. People come for these parties and late-night shows, for the impressions and meeting people.

Guest:  The level of parties in this sector now is nuts.

[20:15]  18. Closing thoughts

Host:  On that positive note, Alex, I’d like to thank you. It was a wonderful ride. You’re a great person to spend time with, so I hope to see you around.

Guest:  We’ll definitely bump into each other. It’s been brilliant, really good. It’s impressive that you’ve been able to ask multiple questions while driving, and not just a car but a big car, in London, in the city, on a weekday. Very impressive.

Host:  Thank you, Alex. Cheers. Good luck with iGB, with Clarion, with ICE, and thank you for this ride.

Guest:  Thank you. Brilliant.

Host:  Another ride complete. And what a ride it was. Alex really showed us what’s happening at the front and the back of iGaming events. See you on the next episode for more great insight.