G2E notebook: Integrated Resort Experience largely a hit in first year on main floor

With integrated resorts becoming all the rage in the land-based casino business, G2E organizers this year took the step of moving the Integrated Resort Experience display from a separate ballroom onto the main show floor at the Sands Expo Center.

The IRE section served to highlight many of the non-gaming amenities that can be offered at a resort-style casino for patrons who either aren’t into gambling or are seeking a broader range of entertainment and family-friendly offerings.

I knew from speaking with Andy Ortale, the American Gaming Association’s G2E mastermind, before the show that bringing the IRE onto the main floor would be one of the major format changes to the show this year, so I checked it out, to experience the ambiance personally.

In-between attending seminars and churning out stories in hyper-caffeinated fashion, I was able to spend two to three hours wandering the IRE corridors, where I chatted up vendors peddling everything from massage chairs and karaoke machines to 11-foot-high chocolate fountains and commercial-grade greaseless fryers. My goals were to get reactions from exhibitors on the new location and to learn more about what their products can add to the holistic resort experience concept.

Based on my conversations with an admittedly non-representative sampling of exhibitors, the setup was a win-win for most participants. Most of the first-year vendors I spoke to said they were able to generate substantial new leads and would almost certainly be returning in coming years. Similarly, veteran exhibitors were pleased with the increased exposure and leads that came with being on the main floor (many of the IRE exhibitors were also near the bar area, which surely aided somewhat).

Representatives from DreamCatcher Hotel Development, a Memphis-based exhibitor that specializes in building economical hotels at tribal casino properties, were thrilled by the improvement in their location compared to last year. Tim Hnedak, one of the company’s marketing executives, told me that he had gotten substantially more new client leads on the first day of this year’s G2E than he did during the entire 2015 show.

Veloxity, a first-year exhibitor, reported significant interest in its mobile-phone charging kiosks. After initially marketing themselves primarily to restaurants, bars, and hotels, chief executive Krassi Popov said he has realized that there is strong, and largely untapped, demand for his products on casino floors – VIP rooms in particular.

The sentiment was more mixed on the food and beverage front. National Food Group, a Michigan-based wholesaler, said that they were happy with the amount of foot traffic and leads generated, while some of the niche exhibitors were more bearish. At the finish of the show, one vendor told me he had made just one out of the five sales he needed to cover the costs of the trip. Another reported that his products generated much more interest from casino representatives at restaurant-specific trade shows, noting that G2E attendees were inherently more attracted to the more exciting and flashy new technologies on display. Both exhibitors hinted that they were unlikely to return in 2017.

I heard from several food and beverage exhibitors that placement was a major issue. They said they could have done much better had they been set up more towards the center of the show floor or en route to the new slot games rather than on the edges, where there is less foot traffic.

While it’s certainly impossible to please all parties in a trade show environment, the general consensus was that incorporating the integrated resort concept into the main G2E floor was a winning idea. That placement not only reflected industry trends but also provided a more prominent venue for displaying some of the exciting entrepreneurial activity that is occurring on the periphery of casino gaming.