| EVENT REPORT 10.14.09 4:03 PM |
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More From the Wine & Food Festival: Cheerleaders at the Burger Bash, Absolut's Branded Lounge
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 | The New York City Wine & Food Festival's crowded Burger Bash
Photo: Marina Senra for BizBash |
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Here's one more look at the attractions at the New York City Wine & Food Festival this past weekend.
Packing in 120 events over its four-day run, the second annual festival attracted more than the 38,000 attendees. Among the events that took place between Thursday and Sunday, the gatherings hosted by Food Network talent—including Rachael Ray's Burger Bash and Giada Delaurentiis's Meatball Madness—sold out first, followed swiftly by culinary demonstrations and talks held at the TimesCenter. At one point, the organizers, led by festival founder Lee Brian Schrager and the production team from Karlitz & Company, opted to expand Saturday night's dessert party, Sweet, to accommodate the surge in demand. Originally planned for 1,050 guests at La.venue, the event annexed the adjacent Waterfront to make room for an extra 350.
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RELATED TOPICS
New York City Wine & Food Festival, Southern Wine & Spirits, Food Network, Food Bank of New York, Share Our Strength, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine |
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| EVENT REPORT 10.12.09 3:58 PM |
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Second Wine & Food Festival Fills New York With 120 Events
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 | The scene at the New York Wine & Food Festival
Photo: John Minchillo for Bizbash |
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Last October, the first New York City Wine & Food Festival made a big splash, attracting more than 38,000 attendees at 87 events and raising more than $1 million for the Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength. For the second round, which started Thursday and ran through Sunday night, organizers expanded the number of events to 120, but many of the evening programs like the Burger Bash sold out in June, faster than last year. The brainchild of Lee Brian Schrager, director of special events for Southern Wine & Spirits and founder of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, the four-day series was produced by a team from Karlitz & Company, led by consulting executive producer Caryl Chinn and festival executive producer Kate Williams.
To capture a bigger audience this year, the planners focused on creating a wide array of choices, from affordable options like the $10 activity events for kids and $35 culinary demos with the likes of Martha Stewart and Rocco DiSpirito to pricier tickets for gatherings like the $150 Grand Tasting on Pier 54 and a $400 meal with Alain Ducasse as part of a dinner series from the James Beard Foundation. The team also wanted personalities from title sponsor Food Network front and center.
"The network has brought food into everyone's home, and even kids are watching it. My seven-year-old niece and nephew are watching the Food Network. We didn't have that when I was young—it was Julia Child and the Galloping Gourmet," Schrager said, explaining why stars like Paula Deen and Guy Fieri appeal to a more than just foodies. Chinn agreed: "New York's a challenging market—it's a very savvy market that's saturated with food events, so you don't want the same old same old. I think our niche is Food Network talent and some of these new and fun formats like an all-meatball tasting or an all-dessert tasting."
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RELATED TOPICS
New York City Wine & Food Festival, Southern Wine & Spirits, Food Network, Food Bank of New York, Share Our Strength, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine |
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| NEWS 10.07.09 3:44 PM |
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Wine & Food Festival's Second Outing to Include Zac Posen, Frank Bruni, and Big Events With Food Network Stars
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 | The packed Burger Bash event at last year's New York City Wine & Food Festival
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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The second New York City Wine & Food Festival opens tomorrow, and this year the massive outing dreamed up by Lee Brian Schrager is bigger and more diverse. Aside from the bevy of local chefs—Daniel Boulud, Andrew Carmellini, Scott Conant, Tom Colicchio, and David Chang among them—hosting dinners, panels, and demonstrations, the four-day food-focused series will also include a number of new events and the participation of fashion designer Zac Posen, former New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, and former President Bill Clinton.
To accommodate more culinary talent from title sponsor the Food Network, the festival's producers added two big parties to the weekend program. On Thursday night, Tyler Florence joins the folks from Thrillist at the Standard hotel for a bacon and blues-themed shindig, Paula Deen will host a Southern-style food showcase Saturday evening at Hill Country, and Giada De Laurentiis will highlight her Italian roots with a Sunday night gathering dubbed Meatball Madness. Rachael Ray, who also hosts one of the festival's biggest attractions—the Friday-night Burger Bash at Brooklyn's Tobacco Warehouse—will introduce the first Weight Watchers-sponsored Fun and Fit in the City with Clinton and Dr. Mehmet Oz at the Harlem Children's Zone on Saturday morning.
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RELATED TOPICS
Southern Wine & Spirits, New York City Wine & Food Festival, Food Network, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine, Food Bank of New York, Share Our Strength, James Beard Foundation |
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| NEWS 04.28.09 8:00 AM |
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Lineup Announced for Second New York City Wine & Food Festival
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 | Sweet, part of last year's New York City Wine & Food Festival
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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Last year, Lee Brian Schrager, founder and director of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, brought his popular foodie outing to New York for the first time. This year, Schrager plans to bring it back, and yesterday announced an event schedule and roster of activities that includes the return of big ticketed events, some new additions, and the presence of many celebrated chefs.
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RELATED TOPICS
New York City Wine & Food Festival, Southern Wine & Spirits, Food Network, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine, Food Bank of New York, Share Our Strength |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.20.09 12:25 PM |
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Travel & Leisure Moves Design Awards to Miami
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 | Travel & Leisure's awards party at LIV
Photo: Seth Browarnik/Red Eye Productions |
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After five years in New York, Travel & Leisure packed up its annual Design Awards and took the 450-guest party to Miami's newest hotspot, the Fontainebleau—home of a recent billion-dollar renovation—on Wednesday. Nestled in the property's lobby-level LIV nightclub, the event kicked off around 6:30 p.m. with lots of passed hors d'oeuvres and cocktails like the Prairie Dust, a lemony, limey, citrusy (read: Florida-appropriate) concoction named after the fete's vodka sponsor.
While one obvious reason for the move might be to jump New York's freezing ship, mag spokesperson Jill Davison clarified, "We're in Miami because it's hot, literally and figuratively. It's 70 degrees today. "
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RELATED TOPICS
Travel & Leisure magazine |
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| NEWS 11.07.08 11:52 AM |
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AmEx Publishing Nixes Holiday Party, Keeps Annual Briefing
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More news of canceled holiday get-togethers: Today, we got word that American Express Publishing—which owns magazine titles like Travel & Leisure, Food & Wine, Departures, and Executive Travel—is eliminating its company-wide holiday party this year and may even cancel its 2009 celebration. Headquartered in New York, the media conglomerate has offices across the country, including Los Angeles, Florida, and the Midwest.
"Yes, we [American Express Publishing] are suspending our holiday party this year in light of the economic climate. We will be gathering the company for our annual year-end business update," Jill Davison, vice president of corporate communications at American Express Publishing, wrote in an email. "While we're streamlining the program—in light of the times—it will be equally informative to last year's agenda. It's important that we get together as a company to review the year and to chart the course ahead for what we all know will be a very challenging road ahead in '09." —Anna Sekula
RELATED TOPICS
Corporate Holiday Parties, American Express Publishing, Travel & Leisure magazine, Food & Wine Magazine, Departures Magazine, Travel & Leisure Golf, Executive Travel |
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| TED KRUCKEL 10.15.08 1:22 PM |
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At Wine & Food Festival, Little Things Can Ruin a Lot
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 | The New York Wine & Food Festival's Target parkscape
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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I hate conventional wisdom, especially when it’s spouted by someone you suspect hasn’t read a good book in a long, long while. Such was my mood as I departed the hospitality lounge of the Food Network Wine & Food Festival presented by Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure. (That’s FNW&FFPBF&W&T&L. Catchy, huh?) It was in the super-hip and centrally located but somehow lackluster Hotel Gansevoort. This was my second visit to the suite, and I was fed up with dum-dums.
On my first day, picking up a lecture ticket, the firmly seated volunteer in the suite told me that the room was not affiliated with the two magazines, despite the lobby sign saying the opposite, and looked incredulous when I asked her if I could leave a note for Food & Wine’s publisher, my friend Christina Grdovic Baltz. How could she, after all, occupied as she was with a plateful of mini-toasts smothered with cheese that she had helped herself to (super-sloppily, apparently, as the entire tablecloth was inches from a complete fall-down)?
The waiter was little help either, busy as he was hiding in the bathroom and not picking up the towels on the floor. A plate of Pepperidge Farm cookies, similarly manhandled, has sworn me off the brand for a long time. They were also serving a new offering from Coppola Vineyards bottled in what seemed to be a reusable carafe but that resembled a grocery store juice bottle, making it hard for me to consider it seriously.
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RELATED TOPICS
New York City Wine & Food Festival, Food Network, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine, Target |
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| EVENT REPORT 10.13.08 1:53 PM |
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Wine & Food Fest Mixes Edible and Musical Offerings
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 | The New York City Wine & Food Festival's Meatpacking Uncorked
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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The first New York City Wine & Food Festival this weekend filled the meatpacking district—and some other areas—with celebrated chefs and foodies for a four-day celebration of all things culinary. Led by Lee Schrager, director of special events for Southern Wine & Spirits and founder of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, this Northeast series was produced by Karlitz & Company and benefited the Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength.
Covering a variety of topics, the weekend-long fair included more than 70 individual seminars, panel discussions, food demonstrations, cooking classes, and large-scale tasting parties. And even with food squarely center stage, the biggest events of the festival—Burger Bash, Sweet, Chelsea Market After Dark, and Midnight Music and Munchies—also provided musical entertainment, from DJs and roaming performers in elaborate costumes to a coffee psychic and an appearance from Tom Colicchio singing and strumming a guitar.
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RELATED TOPICS
New York City Wine & Food Festival, Southern Wine & Spirits, Food Network, Food & Wine Magazine, Travel & Leisure magazine, Share Our Strength, Food Bank of New York, MGM Grand at Foxwoods, DailyCandy, Ferrero, Perrier, Absolut, Target |
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| EVENT REPORT 07.28.08 2:51 PM |
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Travel & Leisure Brings Yerba Buena and Global Theme to Awards Party
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 | Travel & Leisure's branded windows
Photo: Dan Hallman for BizBash |
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Following an awards ceremony and luncheon at the Four Seasons earlier in the day, Travel & Leisure threw its 13th annual World's Best Awards party at the Hudson Terrace Thursday night. Inside the new bilevel venue, the magazine and 500 guests toasted winners with Patron-sponsored cocktails and a performance by Grammy-nominated group Yerba Buena. Aiming to promote name recognition of the reader survey—with some subtle and not-so-subtle branding—T&L designed three spaces that each drew inspiration from a distinct corner of the globe.
Travel & Leisure special events director Penelope Bonaldi aimed to create the feel of a visit to places like Buenos Aires or Bangkok (two of the winning destinations of 2008) while paying tribute to New York with sweeping views of the Midtown skyline from the venue's outdoor spaces. Although an ominous forecast forced Bonaldi to tent the roof Thursday morning, the space didn't go to waste. Some lobster-wonton munching guests stayed atop the Pan-Asian-infused roof for the three-hour event, although a few were disappointed by the appearance of a tent on what turned out to be a clear midsummer night.
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RELATED TOPICS
Travel & Leisure magazine, World's Best Awards |
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| MY FAVORITE VENDORS 05.16.08 9:30 AM |
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Travel & Leisure Likes IAC Space, Creative Edge
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 | Penelope Bonaldi
Photo: David Prutting/Patrick McMullan Photography |
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Australia-born Penelope Bonaldi has been the special events director at Travel & Leisure since 2007, overseeing 40 events per year, including the magazine's annual World’s Best awards. Prior to joining T&L, she worked for Hamptons Cottages and Gardens magazine as project director.
Venue: “It is the most amazing experience preparing for an event at Frank Gehry’s IAC Building. For the design awards in February, the process was seamless and everyone was so sophisticated and smart. The word 'yes' just came out of every sentence. Even though we have to pick new venues all the time, I would just move in there if I could. I’m also trying to be more strategic with venues that won’t necessitate big build-outs; it starts to look obscene at this time of year to spend a lot. IAC has the biggest video wall in the world, so instead of doing creative displays or installations, I get to work in the video world and every guest was blown away.... Lighting is also fantastic; you don’t need an enormous amount of lighting installations. There is a full working kitchen, beautiful 180-degree windows, and a ground-level loading dock; it’s streamlined right through to the reception area.”
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RELATED TOPICS
Travel & Leisure magazine, World's Best Awards |
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