official accommodation partner, ICE Barcelona & iGB Affiliate: inside the citywide accommodation programme behind ICE's move to Barcelona


after 15 years at ExCeL London, ICE — the world's largest gaming and gambling industry trade show, organised by Clarion Events — faced growing dissatisfaction among key exhibitors. One of the contributing issues was challenging hotel market conditions in London, driven by a lack of control over hotel pricing in the city, which pushed accommodation costs steadily higher for attendees and partners year after year.

in response to the industry's concerns, Clarion Events made a strategic decision to reassess ICE's host destination and explore alternative premium European cities capable of delivering a stronger overall value proposition while maintaining the event's global stature. Four finalist destinations entered a competitive citywide RFP process: Barcelona, London, Madrid and Paris. bnetwork was appointed to lead the hotel negotiations — managing binding offers from each destination, with guaranteed inventory, controlled rate structures, multi-year price commitments and a five-year contractual framework built to give exhibitors long-term stability and predictability.

two years on, the results speak for themselves: ~59,000 attendees in 2025 (+13% vs London), ~65,000 in 2026 (+10% year-on-year, +25% vs London), 186 countries represented, and a citywide hotel programme built from zero in Barcelona — 178 hotels, 28,300+ room nights, 6,573 rooms at peak.

growth story infograph

an 85-year institution at an inflection point

for more than 85 years, ICE was synonymous with London, and for 15 years specifically with ExCeL. Co-located with iGB Affiliate, it had grown into the single most influential B2B gathering for the gaming, betting and lottery industries worldwide.

by the early 2020s, however, several exhibitor concerns around space, cost and logistics in London had become impossible to ignore: hotel market conditions were unsustainable, with London's open-market yearly ADR (average daily rate) climbing 30% between 2022 and 2024 alone; exhibitor growth was constrained by limited available space at ExCeL; and post-Brexit logistics created friction for international customer groups, particularly around shipping gaming hardware and updated UK entry rules for delegates.

the COVID pause had given Clarion the space to engage its customer base more deeply than ever — and the consensus that came back was clear: ICE's long-term location strategy needed a full, independent re-evaluation.

the competitive process: a multi-city binding hotel RFP

Clarion commissioned an independent, expert-led evaluation structured as a competitive four-city bid across Barcelona, London, Madrid and Paris, assessing more than 50 variables across four areas: venue infrastructure and financial conditions; local authorities' support; destination resources — accessibility, public mobility infrastructure, security and tourism authority support; and hotels' binding offer, led by bnetwork.

for bnetwork, the brief was twofold: lead a rigorous, binding hotel RFP process across the four candidate cities with full methodological integrity, and — if the event moved — build an entire citywide hotel programme from scratch, at a scale matching the world's largest event in its sector, in a compressed timeframe, in a destination that had never hosted a B2B gaming gathering of this profile.

to keep the process transparent, fair and respectful across all four competing destinations, bnetwork implemented a standardised methodology applied consistently to each city. Every shortlisted destination was required to submit proposals under identical guidelines — harmonised booking conditions (cancellation policies, payment terms, allotments), defined price ranges by hotel category, standardised contract structures, clear commitments on rate evolution over the five-year term, and uniform reporting formats enabling direct benchmarking between destinations.

the result: barcelona

barcelona emerged as the clearest outcome on the combination of pricing, citywide capacity, venue infrastructure (Fira de Barcelona — 240,000 m²), international connectivity via El Prat, and the ability to commit to a binding five-year rate framework. on a like-for-like comparison of the dominant 4-star category, barcelona delivered a rate advantage of ~28% versus London.

the final decision was placed in the hands of the ICE Advisory Board — 30+ global brands representing over 45% of the event ecosystem — ensuring genuine industry ownership of the outcome. barcelona was selected by more than 90% of the board.

quote Stuart Hunter, Clarion Gaming

the leap: building a citywide hotel programme from zero

with the decision made, Clarion set a deliberately simple internal mandate: "to make friends." in a new venue, a new city and an entirely new ecosystem of partners, the priority was building relationships quickly, aligning on a shared vision, and creating a win-win environment for everyone involved.

"post-decision, we set a simple mandate: to make friends. [...] working with bnetwork as our official accommodation partner is a strong example of this approach — two businesses working collaboratively, delivering excellent outcomes for customers."

Stuart Hunter, Managing Director, Clarion Gaming

operationalising the mandate

the "make friends" mandate meant partnership over procurement — transparent communication, shared commercial interest, and long-term relationship-building with 178 hotel partners, many of them engaging with a B2B gaming event for the first time.

as official accommodation partner, bnetwork's task was to operationalise that philosophy across the accommodation programme: identifying and contracting hotel partners across Barcelona's districts; executing the rate and inventory commitments secured in the RFP; mapping transport connections and proximity to Fira Gran Via across its five halls; building the operational infrastructure — room allocation, exhibitor and delegate preference management, real-time inventory — for a peak-demand window; and integrating the hotel programme with Clarion's ground-up redesign of sectorisation and customer flow.

the results

delivered across five halls at Fira de Barcelona Gran Via, the programme is backed by five-year binding rate caps and conditions, protecting exhibitors from the kind of inflation dynamics that had affected London.


the results data points
"moving the event to Barcelona proved to be a great success. looking forward to next year!"

Eyal Loz, Chief Product Officer, RubyPlay
 
"the world's largest iGaming trade fair has lived up to its name. after declining quality in London, the Barcelona trade fair has been given a second wind. plenty of space and better mood, which is undoubtedly influenced by the destination."

 Michal Krcmar, 24Live, Apollo Games

the biggest lesson learnt

or Stuart Hunter, Managing Director at Clarion Gaming, the takeaway was clear: customer centricity must be more than a mantra — it needs to be operationalised through decisive, and sometimes difficult, action in the best interests of the industries you serve.

four disciplines form a transferable framework for any organiser facing a destination inflection point: listen continuously, long before the formal process begins; treat accommodation as a strategic input — through a binding, citywide RFP with harmonised conditions and a multi-year rate framework — not as a post-decision logistics task; empower stakeholders with genuine decision authority; and choose partnership over procurement. A citywide programme is a network of 178 relationships. "Make friends," pursued genuinely, is what makes delivery possible.

what's next

ICE Barcelona & iGB Affiliate's move is now a two-edition success story — and a blueprint for what accommodation strategy can look like when it's treated as a core part of event planning, not an afterthought. If your event is facing its own destination inflection point, bnetwork's team can help you turn accommodation into a competitive advantage.

get in touch with our team.
august 2026