Operator News
ICE – Gamesman to take record presence at home show
By Phil - 27 January 2015
Gamesman, the international gaming equipment components and systems manufacturer, has confirmed that it will be taking its biggest ever presence at ICE 2015, its’ 18th consecutive appearance at what is the company’s ‘home show’.
The increased presence at ICE reflects Gamesman’s growing profile and influence on the world stage. The company, which is part of the Esterline Corporation, has a dedicated office in Las Vegas and a wholly owned manufacturing facility in Shenzen, China to complement Gamesman’s head office situated close to London Gatwick. On the international exhibition stage Gamesman has in the previous 12 months, taken stands in Las Vegas, Macau and London. Mark Smith, founder and Managing Director of Gamesman believes that the flagship industry events such as ICE, provide a unique opportunity for all sectors of the business.
He explained: “Exhibitions, and in particular ICE as the most international gathering on the gaming industry calendar, provide an opportunity for the entire chain of innovators, suppliers, operators and manufacturers to come together, discuss issues impacting the business in its broadest sense and move forward with an injection of confidence and in our case, with a raft of new product ideas to work on. I would say that 50 per cent of our time at exhibitions is spent marketing products and 50 per cent spent talking about the industry and listening to what our customers and potential customers have to say about the issues impacting them. Our job is to understand their issues, to interpret them from a technology perspective and then present them with a solution.”
With technology sitting at the heart of the Gamesman business strategy, the company is in the process of strengthening its R&D team working out of the London head office. Explaining the importance of R&D to the company, Sales Manager Martin Rigby said: “Our strategy is to ensure that head count in R&D is always ahead of the number of customer projects we are working on particularly with a growing demand for the development and delivery of bespoke gaming solutions for individual customers. Whilst there is close co-operation between all of our R&D teams including those based in the US and in China, the nerve centre remains in the UK, which is where the Gamesman story began.Being successful in developing smart gaming solutions to meet the very specific needs of our customers can only be achieved if R&D is at the very heart of the business as it is for both Gamesman and for our parent company, Esterline.”
Gamesman will be using ICE as a shop window for both its’ off the shelf gaming solutions and the bespoke product development service which accounts for a growing percentage of annual turnover. The company will be showing a LCD/Touchscreen solutions, engineered for gaming from Esterline’s brand new in-house Taiwanese touch screen operation as well as a wide range of Gamesman’s acclaimed dynamic push buttons decks and Toppers.
