Pizza Show No Longer Lost in Infinity
By Michael Hart and Heidi Genoist -- Tradeshow Week, 3/20/2006
At least one tradeshow left stranded after the dissolution of Infinity Expo Group has come out on top. The New York Pizza Show, previously managed by Infinity Expo in conjunction with PMQ Magazine, will be managed by Reed Exhibitions.
The planned 2006 show, now fully owned by PMQ, will move from its November dates at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center to March next year in order to collocate with Reed's Intl. Restaurant & Foodservice Show of New York. Reed Exhibitions and PMQ will also launch a second event, the Orlando Pizza Show, which will collocate with Reed's Florida Restaurant Show.
"In the end, it's really been a positive thing," said Steve Green, publisher of PMQ, a business-to-business magazine for the pizza industry. "I just got back from the restaurant show in New York, and it was super busy for three days. I was really impressed."
The 2007 show will be the third annual New York Pizza Show, after two managed by Infinity Expo on PMQ's behalf.
After Infinity Expo dissolved late last year, Green said, he had one discussion with company President Mark LoGiurato, the Infinity partner primarily responsible for the pizza show. After that, nothing.
Finally, he said, PMQ's attorneys gave notice that the magazine would exercise its contract option to buy Infinity Expo's interest in the show by paying the company's debts. When PMQ heard nothing in the prescribed 30-day period, Green considered it a done deal.
"As far as we're concerned, we've bought out our partner, and we've entered into a new management relationship with Reed Exhibitions," Green said.
When news of the Infinity Expo dissolution first surfaced last December, TSW spoke with former Senior Vice President Tony Calanca. Partners LoGiurato and Nancy Jo Wiggin could not be reached, and Jamie Swanson did not return phone calls.
At the time, Calanca said he was leaving the company because "there just wasn't enough volume there to support the four partners."
"We all had expectations of one kind or another, and there didn't turn out to be as much business as I thought. It was good business, just not that much," he said.
Because Infinity was a limited liability corporation, any one partner's departure would trigger dissolution of the entire group.
At the time, Calanca said he planned to continue with a few of his own clients, while LoGiurato would manage the group's shows under the auspices of a new company, possibly called TNE Expos.
Green said that LoGiurato was still managing the Connecticut Restaurant Show.
But calls to the phone number listed on the Connecticut Restaurant Show Web site connected to "Tony Calanca of Infinity Expo" and were not returned.
Infinity also managed a triennial show, SPESA Expo 2004. Benton Gardner, Sewn Products Equipment & Suppliers of the Americas executive vice president, said Calanca — but not Infinity Expo — would do the same in 2007.
"It's really not a change for us," Gardner said. "They only handled the operations part anyway."
Infinity is also no longer involved with Cosmetic Surgery Expo, an annual event in four cities, according to Michael Colby, show manager both before and after a brief relationship with Infinity.
"We hooked up with them for a while, and it just didn't work out too well," Colby said.
He also said he had not been in touch with anybody involved with Infinity Expo for some time.
"Mark LoGiurato is not answering his phone," Colby said.
During its first year, Infinity teamed up with Cygnus Expositions to launch Security & Systems Solutions Expo, a direct competitor of Reed Exhibitions' Intl. Security Conference East. The Infinity-Cygnus show saw a weak debut and is now defunct, while the Reed show grew last year.
Infinity in 2004 also landed a contract as interim manager of the semiannual, TSW-200 ranked World Shoe Assn. Shows after the former director was put on leave of absence. However, that gig ended after new COO Diane Stone and her team took over show management in February 2005.
