Attendance and other factors signifying a successful exhibition have been audited and analyzed showing ICE, which was held in London last February, has clocked some impressive numbers.

Fusion, a research firm based in London who has worked on projects from the USA to China, South Africa through UAE to Germany, Scandinavia, and beyond has ranked ICE among the elite of UK-based business-to-business exhibitions. Using a metric known as the Net Promoter Score (NPS) which measures customer satisfaction and is in use by companies such as Amazon, eBay, and Apple, Fusion found ICE to score +53 among exhibitor decision makers and +39 among visitors. Those numbers when compared to other leading events, place ICE in the top three business exhibitions in the UK over the previous year.

Phil Redwood, CEO and Director at Fusion, explained: “Our role is to provide event owners with what is essentially a health check, based on the response of a representative sample of participants, covering both exhibitors and visitors.  Whilst we cover a multitude of issues, factors and experiences, from the warmth of the welcome, to the cleanliness of the toilets and the quality of the audience, the Net Promoter Score is a measure of overall satisfaction.  Essentially, it rates the willingness of respondents to recommend the event to their peers or colleagues and in scenarios where an event has been deemed unsuccessful, the NPS can be represented as a negative score.”

“Clearly, the key take out for our 2016 ICE research was the NPS for exhibitors, which ranked at a huge +53, from +45  (ICE 2015). This figure eclipses all but two other events that we have researched across a diverse range of business sectors in the last 12 months and is way ahead of the event industry average.  The NPS for visitors to ICE 2016 was +39, another very impressive rating and one which is consistent with that registered for ICE 2015.”

Kate Chambers, Managing Director of the gaming division at Clarion Events, said: “I am very pleased with our performance based on the NPS metric, which follows receipt of our officially audited attendance figure of 28,487 unique visitors, a new record high attendance for the ICE brand.

“However, the research programme that we undertake after each edition of ICE, is not an exercise in vanity or narcism.  Yes, we want to have our customers’ validation of the initiatives and attention to detail that is at the heart of the ICE journey, but I’m as interested in learning about aspects of the customer experience which failed to live up to the standards we set, purely in order to put them right. We have in place a policy of continuous improvement, which means identifying every area in which we can make even a marginal difference and the research programme undertaken by Fusion is central to achieving this.

“On behalf of the ICE team and the Directors at Clarion Events,  I would like to place on record my sincere thanks to our exhibitors, our visitors and to our broader community of stakeholders for their continued support and for making ICE such a remarkable experience and such an enjoyable brand to work on.”

ICE Totally Gaming 2017, takes place across 7 – 9 February, ExCeL, London.  For more information: www.icetotallygaming.com