Supplier News

South Africa – ICE Africa goes digital due to Covid-19 disruption

By Phil - 19 August 2020

Clarion Gaming’s third instalment of Africa’s leading gambling exhibition and conference ICE Africa will run online, running from October 27 to 29.

Supported by a series of reports, features and video content in the run-up to the event, the digital conference and networking platform will give delegates the opportunity to learn, engage and discuss the key market developments. For the first time, content will be made available in both English and French, reflecting Africa’s large Francophone population.

Attendees will also be able to take advantage of the MATCH – an efficient networking platform that matches participants, delivers qualified meetings and increases ROI, powered by Artificial Intelligence.

Clarion Gaming’s training division, Totally Gaming Academy, will run a series of bespoke training sessions, allowing registrants to learn from industry experts at a time when Covid-19 is causing significant disruption to the traditionally successful verticals across Africa.

The ICE Africa, Women in Gaming campaign will run digitally after its very successful Pan-African launch in 2019. Universally, all of the ladies who both featured in the campaign as well as attended the first WIG Breakfast at ICE Africa 2019, highly recommended the campaign. The WIG platform will continue to highlight the diverse and phenomenal contribution made by women throughout the African gaming sector.

Further details of the program, and additional features, will be announced in due course.

ICE Africa becomes the third show in Clarion Gaming’s ICE portfolio to move online in response to Covid-19, following the successful debuts of ICE North America Digital and ICE Asia Digital.

Group Event Director Greg Saint said: “The key thing for us as organisers is that we continue to help our audience in addressing their needs – needs that have changed considerably since the last in-person edition of ICE Africa. We treat each event as its own – so, while both of our recent digital events performed very well in meeting the needs of our participants, we don’t take that for granted. We’ve spoken with our stakeholders and have been very pleased with the demand for running ICE Africa 2020 to help fulfil their requirements in a very challenging period – this time helping them to meet their objectives as before, but online.”

Clarion Events’ commercial director: Africa, Richard Stubbs, added: “Africa has seen its own set of challenges across the continent due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, significantly impacting how our customers can do their jobs and achieve their goals. We’re committed to doing anything we can to help our audience during this tough time – and, as physical venues are currently not an option for staging events in South Africa, we are pleased to be able to take the initiative and deliver a digital edition of ICE Africa, which will continue the learning that the gaming industry needs now more than ever.”

ICE Africa Digital will take place online from Tuesday, 27 October to Thursday, 29 October.