New York Pizza Show Sets East Coast Attendance Record
Success! The tradition has begun. Thank you attendees, exhibitors and media for making the inaugural New York Pizza Show a success. Over 2,400 pizza professionals made it to the Jacob Javits Center for PMQ’s first pizza show. Attendees came from 12 countries and more than 40 states. Now that New York City is our show’s official home, we’re already working on next year. Well be focusing our efforts, along with PMQ’s three pizza magazines (U.S. Australia and Canadian issues) on making the New York Pizza Show bigger and better next year. Remember November1-2, 2005!
America’s Plate International Hit
Team Oz returned to Australia as full-fledged heroes. Team members Andy Parisi and Theo Kalogeracos found themselves riding a wave of publicity after winning the America’s Plate International Pizza Competition. The recognition is still resonating, creating long lines outside of the their stores. These owners did no less than 70 radio interviews, several national TV shows and newspapers and were featured in Australia’s national personality tabloid. The Aussies defeated American, French and Italian pizza challengers. Next year, however, it won’t be so easy to hold on to the plate. New Zealand, Canada and Spain will be joining the competition.
US Pizza Team Selected In Dramatic Fashion
Each year the pizza competition gets more competitive and the scores get closer. Congratulations to Juan Hermosillo for winning the hotly contested dough acrobatic dough tossing event at the U.S. Pizza Team trials. Sean Brauser also made the team by winning the American Pizza Championship while Brian Edler won both the fastest pizza and largest stretch event. The final two U.S. Pizza Team positions will be claimed at the NAPICS Show in Columbus, Ohio.
Massive Media Attention
More than 80 media passes were issued at PMQ’s New York Pizza Show. The New York Times, Nation’s Restaurant News, Time Out New York, USA Today, and the New York Post in addition to many other were talking with attendees and exhibitors and getting stories. Contestants from the U.S. Pizza Team and the America’s Plate were featured on ABC’s Good Morning America, the CBS Early Show, Life and Style, and WPIX Channel 11 NYC. Articles appeared in newspapers in Australia and French magazines. Filmmakers Michael Dorian and Joe dos Santos from Cat Price Productions were also present with their staff filming for their independent film The Pizza Movie. To learn more about how you can be in it, visit www.thepizzamovie.com
The Pizza Pages
You will notice that the January/February issue of PMQ is a little different. PMQ has put together a comprehensive collection of pizza resources for operators creating the PMQ Pizza Pages. This will serve as your “Yellow Pages” of pizza companies. No matter what you need, you should be able to find it here in the Pizza Pages. Operators can also view these listing along with new additions throughout the year at www.thepizzapages.com
