Clarion will be applying its knowledge and experience gained working in the international gaming space with the launch of Gaming Africa, a free-to-attend two-day conference taking place in Johannesburg across 24 and 25 October. The decision to launch Gaming Africa follows requests from major industry players for a quality business-to-business event dedicated to meet the specific gaming needs of the continent. The Clarion organising team has experience working with the market having staged a highly successful World Regulatory Briefing (WrB) in Kenya earlier this year, which was preceded by WrB Nigeria in 2015.
Explaining her expectations for gaming’s latest brand, Kate Chambers, Managing Director of Clarion Gaming, said: “Wherever we operate in the world we do so at the request of the market. I would draw parallels with the development of Juegos Miami, which was launched following requests from operators who wanted us to develop a bespoke event. This is exactly what we are doing with Gaming Africa and will assess the response and the market dynamics before confirming our plans for 2018.
“Any similarities with ICE will be based around the standards of organisation, of content and of professionalism that we are bringing to this new event. Whilst there is huge growth in Africa, it takes many decades of nurturing to develop an event anywhere close to the scale of ICE, which in 2017 comprised over 500 exhibitors occupying 42,000 sqm of stand space. Gaming Africa will be an event where operators and regulators can meet, share knowledge and move forwards in a strategic and sustainable manner.”
She added: “We know from the many conversations that we’ve had with the market, not just in Africa but also throughout the gaming world, how important training is in terms of raising standards and creating a professional and sustainable industry. To satisfy this, we will be bringing the highly acclaimed ‘Totally Gaming Academy’ master classes to Gaming Africa, offering full training streams covering online, land based, sports betting and affiliate sectors.”