The National Restaurant Association show, one of the biggest expos in the U.S., will convene at Chicago’s McCormick Place from May 20 to 23 with more than 30,000 attendees—and a new owner.
On May 18, Informa, the parent company of MeetingsNet, announced the acquisition of Winsight, owner of the NSA show.
Winsight, a B2B events, data, and media group, is focused on the food and beverage industry. In addition to its flagship NSA expo, it operates the Restaurant Leadership Conference and FSTEC, a food-service technology show, among other events; owns Technomic, a foodservice data and insights platform; and publishes numerous foodservice media brands.
The acquisition will dovetail with Informa’s Restaurant & Food Group, which comprises the publications Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Hospitality, Supermarket News, and Food Management, as well as the event platform CREATE and the culinary-award program MenuMasters.
“Alongside technology, life sciences, and aviation, this [acquisition] adds foodservice to our roster of category-leading B2B businesses with scale, international reach, and an increasingly diversified service offering spanning live and on-demand events, specialist data/research, specialist media, and related B2B digital services,” said Stephen A. Carter, group chief executive at Informa.
Separately, Informa recently announced that it had completed the acquisition of Tarsus, first announced on March 9, ahead of schedule. Tarsus is a global exhibitions company with shows focused on a broad range of sectors, including healthcare, sustainability, aviation, packaging, and more. In the events space, Tarsus owns media brands BizBash and Trade Show News Network as well as Connect Meetings, a series of face-to-face events for meeting professionals.
