Ascend Buys Eaton Hall Food Safety Show
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 1/30/2006
Ascend Media has nailed another acquisition with the purchase of Eaton Hall Exhibitions' Food Safety Summit & Expo.
The 6-year-old summit will become part of Stagnito Communications, Ascend's food and beverage division. Based in Deerfield, Ill., the division produces 15 food and beverage magazines, as well as a series of gaming summits and magazines.
"At the end of the day, we both struck a good deal," said Cameron Bishop, CEO of Ascend Media, which is backed by Veronis Suhler Stevenson and J.P. Morgan Partners. "It was a compelling acquisition for us. We think we'll be able to leverage the show through utilization of our magazines as promotional vehicles."
The summit marks the first acquisition in nearly a year for the Overland Park, Kan.-based Ascend, which was established in 2002 by Bishop, Dan Altman and Ron Wall, all former Primedia executives. However, Bishop said Ascend is currently working to finalize three more.
Eaton Hall President Scott Goldman said Ascend's food and beverage division President Harry Stagnito wasn't the only interested party. "He'd been pursuing us for a couple of years. Other people had made overtures, but Stagnito was persistent."
Goldman said he would stay on through this year's event, then set about launching new shows. His two employees, meanwhile, will become part of Stagnito Communications. He described closing the sale as "two of the most exciting days of my tradeshow career."
The summit was named a Tradeshow Week Fastest 50 show in 2003, and organizers reported attendance was up 18 percent at the 2005 summit at the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center. This year's summit is expected to draw 2,200 attendees and 250 exhibitors to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas March 22–24.
This year, the Food Safety Summit will also be collocated with SNAXPO, a 66-year-old show owned by the Snack Food Assn. SNAXPO is expected to attract new buyers, including food plant managers and directors of manufacturing and food safety, from large firms such as Kraft, Frito-Lay and Pepperidge Farm.
The Food Safety Summit becomes Stagnito's third food and beverage event. Stagnito is organizing a New Products Conference Sept. 7–8 at Chicago's Drake Hotel and the Products That Sell Conference at a time and place still being finalized.
Its gaming events include BingoWorld Conference & Expo, Casino Marketing Conference, Florida Gaming Summit, Gaming Technology Summit, Indian Gaming Natl. Marketing Conference, New York Gaming Summit and Southern Gaming Summit.
Bishop said Ascend is "rapidly developing enough scale to have a full-blown tradeshow management team."
Stagnito Communications joined Ascend as part of the December 2004 acquisition of Medical World Communications, a 350-employee producer of 50 health care magazines, as well as continuing medical education events. At about the same time, Ascend purchased Exhibitor Visibility World, which produces exhibit guides and show programs for medical events; and SynerMed Communications, a 45-employee organizer of continuing medical education conferences.
Bishop said Ascend has been working hard to add to its portfolio. "It's been a competitive year. We've been very active in evaluating and bidding on a number of deals," he said.
