iGB Live is one of two annual conferences run by Clarion Gaming under the iGaming Business banner. The winter conference iGB Affiliate is run alongside the huge iGaming trade show ICE and focuses purely on iGaming affiliation. The summer conference iGB Live is a standalone and includes B2B exhibitors as well as operators and affiliates.

I’ve been attending iGB Live since 2014, only missing the pandemic years, and all this time it’s been held at the Amsterdam RAI conference centre. Next year (2025) it’s all change; iGB Affiliate and ICE are moving from London to Barcelona and iGB Live is going to be in London in July. Much as I love the place (I live there, so I’m biased) and much as London in July will be a nicer environment that London in February, it’s hard to see how the event can possibly be as good as it was in Amsterdam.

A BIG part of what made iGB Amsterdam so amazing is the Strandzuid. A large beach bar complex right next to the conference centre, it was the venue for early evening networking drinks on both days as well as the welcome drinks the night before and the Unwind session (with canal boat trip) the day after. With such a large amount of outdoor space (including some under cover which came in handy when it rained on the opening night), it was really easy to circulate, catch up with old friends and make new ones.

A stand-up bar table in an outdoor bar area, with a central well full of self serve drinks bottles.
At the Strandzuid events there were many stand up tables like this, the ideal place to gather for drinks and chat

It’s to be hoped that with the London event taking place in summer rather than winter and without the extra 45,000 ICE attendees, they can find some indoor-outdoor space near ExCel to take the place of Strandzuid. The Fox at ExCel is the most obvious candidate and has been used for iGB events before, but has a capacity of just 1200 – surely not enough given Clarion Gaming’s ambitions to increase iGB Live attendance to 35,000 by 2028.

Back to the 2024 event! It was the biggest and busiest iGB Live ever (in the region of 10,000 attendees and 300 sponsors and exhibitors), so busy that it was moved to a different location within the RAI, occupying three halls instead of one and with the talks and panels in a fourth hall. For those of us who have been coming for years, this was really confusing, like being lost in a maze of twisty little passages all the same as each other. In fact, I did kind of get lost a few times and I’m not sure I actually managed to see everything (I did have a very busy schedule).

At 4pm on the second day, what you really need is an espresso martini – and I found one!

I also attended two wonderful dinners and met some fabulous people courtesy of iGB Executive, and had the use of the spacious, airy iGB Executive Suite which was an oasis of calm away from the busy, noisy show floor. Highly recommended!

Will it be my last trip to Amsterdam? Almost certainly not – despite attending the conference so many times I’ve never managed to find the time to do much other stuff. A few boat trips, several very nice restaurants, some walks around the city and visits to the Cheese Museum, Tulip Museum and one art exhibition have been the sum total of it. There is so much more Amsterdam has to offer that I’ve yet to experience, so I hope to be back in the future to go full metal tourist.