Informa Acquires Fan Expo Canada
Fan Expo founder and existing management team join the multinational media company, Informa, with the aim of expanding programming and resources and developing the concept and brand internationally
Hobby Star Marketing, which runs Canada’s largest pop culture conventions, including Fan Expo Canada, has been acquired by Informa PLC.
Informa PLC is a multinational media company with 150 offices around the world and is one of the world’s largest organisers of events. Informa Canada is Canada’s largest event organiser, with a portfolio that includes the Interior Design Show, Delicious Food, The Toronto International Art Fair, Construct Canada, Buildex Vancouver and the One Of A Kind Shows.
Informa and Hobby Star Marketing came to an agreement on the acquisition earlier this summer. Informa has played a major role in the planning of Fan Expo Canada 2013, which boasts a larger celebrity line-up and level of programming than ever before.
Hobby Star Marketing CEO, Aman Gupta and President, Steve Menzie, will continue to lead Fan Expo Canada, along with its existing team of employees, under the new ownership.
“This deal allows us to take Fan Expo Canada, and our other pop culture conventions, to the next level — the international stage,” Gupta said. “We look forward to working with Informa to expand programming, and build new customer experiences, while maintaining pricing levels.”
“We are proud to add Fan Expo Canada to both our global network and our Canadian portfolio of events,” Will Morris, President of Informa Canada and CEO Informa’s global exhibition portfolio, said. “We look forward to helping this renowned convention realize its true potential with our extensive resources and expertise.”
In 2013, for the first time ever, Fan Expo Canada took over both the North and South buildings of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, allowing it to host over 100,000 fans and 900 retailers, artists and exhibitors across 750,000 square feet of space.
About Informa Plc:
Informa is the largest publicly-owned organiser of exhibitions, events and training in the world with around 7,000 employees working in over 150 offices across more than 40 countries. Its global reach and breadth of offer is unique. Informa Canada produces and manages over 46 seminars, conferences, trade and consumer shows every year, in a variety of sectors including construction, design, craft, art, real estate, furniture, furnishings and food.
About Fan Expo Canada and Fan Expo Sports:
Founded by Hobby Star Marketing Inc. as the Canadian National Comic Book Expo in 1995, Fan Expo Canada is an annual four-day multi-genre fan convention featuring comic, anime, science, fiction, horror, and gaming plus, new this year (2013), the introduction of Fan Expo Sports.