Who's On First?

Quinn Halford -- Gifts & Decorative Accessories, 10/1/2000

Keeping track of who owns which gift show these days is like keeping tabs on the Yankees roster leading up to the postseason. There are so many changes that, without a scorecard, you can never be sure who's going to be on first come game time. Well, the gift business scorecard looks something like this: After being bought by Vornado Realty, Chicago's MMPI Inc. went on a spending spree, buying showrooms in Washington, DC; New York; and High Point. AMC Inc. sold the California Gift Show to DMG World Media. MMPI Inc. bought out the Chicago Gift Show and Beckman's Handcrafted Gift Show, except in Los Angeles, where Beckman's owner, Industry Productions of America (IPA), was based. Publisher VNU bought Miller Freeman USA and is planning to roll it into VNU's Bill Communications division. On the other side of the pond, Reed Elsevier, Gifts & Dec's parent company, bought Miller Freeman's European trade show division, which includes 50 percent ownership of both Paris' Maison & Objet and Milan's Macef. Meanwhile, Fairchild Urban Expositions became Urban Expositions (after Urban bought out Fairchild's interest). And back in Los Angeles, IPA went out of business and closed down the L.A. Beckman's, and MMPI bought the L.A. Mart.

Which brings us back to Chicago. Sort of. The Collectible and Platemakers Guild has withdrawn its endorsement of the International Collectible Expo (ICE). The ICE is produced by Krause Publications, which bought the show from McRand International a couple of years ago. The Guild is throwing its weight behind a new Chicago show, Collectors' Festival 2001, which is produced by Miller Freeman.I mean, VNU. Actually, make that Bill Communications.I think. The result is that there will be two shows in the same month in the same city in an industry (collectibles) that isn't exactly in rosy condition. How this all came about is the subject of "Showdown in Chicago" (page 101), Meredith Schwartz's account of charges and countercharges in the Windy City.

Thrilla in New York

I recently dropped in on a press party introducing The Boxing Series, sports collectibles that feature hand imprints of Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Gerry Cooney, and Roberto Duran set in polyresin and mounted on wooden plaques with brass nameplates. The four boxing greats were in attendance, and I can attest to that fact that Cooney's huge paws still deliver a bone-crushing handshake. The series is manufactured by Silk Road Gifts of New York, and the company's chief e-commerce officer is our own George Matyjewicz, who writes Gifts & Dec's "E-Tailer's Digest" column. Each plaque in The Boxing Series comes in a gift box, retails for $60, and will be on store shelves in time for the holiday season.

Back to those gift shows: If you're keeping score, make sure you do so in pencil. The final lineup isn't in yet.