NOVOTEL
LONDON WEST
London W6
Wednesday 20 Oct 2010
10.00 - 18.00
Thursday 21 Oct 2010
10.00 - 16.00
Organised by HOWARD & WIKBERG
PROMOTIONS
+44[0]20 7387 2021
Contact Ylva Howard ylva@preview-uk.com
Press Reports
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Preview Highlights The Need To Close Ranks Coinslot No. 2129 16th - 22nd October 2009
'We’re trying to keep the price down by maintaining a balance between price, quality and performance. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how good a product is, if its price point is too high, people won’t buy it.' Paolo Sidoli SB Machines
“While we’re still strong in the hi-tech AWP single site sector, market conditions have meant that we’ve had to diversify.” Kevin Weir Electrocoin
“There is nothing like PokerKard anywhere in the world. Poker for fun has captured the imagination of players men and women alike - who just want a social game.” Tony Eyre Nova Productions
STICK TOGETHER CHRIS MURPHY There’s a fair chance that people are most likely to disagree with those around them when they’re at their lowest ebb. Not to put too dramatic a point on it, elements of that could be seen or heard all too clearly in the run-up to and during last week’s Preview. The coin-op industry is evidently hurting and it’s beginning to show. In many ways, such reactions are easily understandable.
This year’s Preview should, in theory, have been a galvanising exercise. It should have been the ideal platform from which to stick two fingers up to those external forces that have done their best, knowingly or otherwise to weaken the resolve of this business. What better way of showing the policy makers and regulators et al that despite their best efforts this industry is tough enough to stand its ground come what may?
Instead, we had a coin-op exhibition which, for all the genuine efforts of the organisers, came at perhaps the wrong time for the business. The pressures facing everyone are beginning to take their toll.
The important thing moving on from last week is to try to ensure that this malaise doesn’t get any worse. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an exhibition organiser, operator, manufacturer, distributor or even publisher; the inescapable fact is that as an industry we have to work our way collectively out of the current circumstances we all find ourselves in.
The frustrating aspect of all this is that there were some motes of confidence amid the overall fug of despondency at Preview. If you looked hard enough beyond the j’accuse demeanour doing the rounds in London there were more than a handful of key industry people who are beginning to see a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel.
Added to that, there was still a buzz about the business. Whether or not that was created by a compacted show and more bodies concentrated into a smaller footprint is hard to ascertain. But it goes without saying that the Preview organisers have managed to work a minor miracle in getting the show off the ground at all in what has perhaps been one of the most traumatic years in coin-op history.
Mention should be made, too, of the brilliant product on display last week. It could be argued that never before has there been a finer selection of games - and by that we mean kit from across the coin-op spectrum. All this has been produced in lean times; just think what could be achieved in better times.
One thing that Preview achieved with consummate ease was to focus minds on what might or might not happen in January 2010. The consensus of opinion suggested that there will be two distinctly different camps comprising a largely UK coin-op business pitching for business at ExCel, and the casino/igaming sector which will be setting up shop at Earls Court. Should they be set apart at such a pivotal period for the business? Well, depending on who you talk to, that’s a massively controversial question; although purely academic given that the die has already been cast.
Whichever way you care to look at it then, Preview did have its finger right on the pulse this year, as we predicted it would. And having checked the vital signs of the business, we can say for sure that it requires more than a sticking plaster and a couple of Aspirin. Whether we like it or not, we’ve got to stick together for better or for worse. In the words of one Captain George Mainwaring: “Half the platoon will be in the Novelty Rock Emporium and from Stone’s Amusement Arcade we shall be strongly supported by the rest of the platoon, on bicycles!”
