Ottawa cottage show acquired by Blue Ant and added to Cottage Life Media portfolio

Cottage Life Media has added to its portfolio of consumer shows with the acquisition by its parent company Blue Ant Media of the Ottawa-based Cottage and Backyard Show from Caneast Shows. It has been re-branded as the Ottawa Cottage Life and Backyard Show. The three-day spring events will be joining the Spring and Fall Cottage Life Shows in Toronto, the Edmonton Cottage Life and Cabin Show and the Seasons Christmas Show in Toronto. 

Cottage Life Media is a division of Blue Ant Media, a privately held international content producer with operations in Los Angeles, Singapore, Auckland, Dunedin, London, Sydney, Beijing and Taipei. 

Weddingbells magazine launching its own bridal show in January 2017

Weddingbells magazine is launching a bridal show called Unveiled that will take place at Toronto's Arcadian Court on January 21, 2017. The show is expected to have over 100 exhibitors and will include a live editorial fashion sheet featuring a bridal fashion runway as part of "content ecosystem that will span from print and digital to social media, mobile and e-commerce." 

While it seems obvious that a magazine called Weddingbells would have its own show, it is being launched into a somewhat crowded field, including Canada's Bridal Show, the Persian Bridal Show, National Bridal Show and the Ultimate Bridal Show, among many others in the Greater Toronto and Niagara area. 

Cottage Life rebrands Cottage as Cottage Life West, launches Edmonton consumer show

Cottage to go West

Cottage Life Media is rebranding its recently acquired Cottage magazine as Cottage Life West, starting in March 2014. And concurrently, it is launching the Edmonton Cottage Life & Cabin Show, much like its successful eastern counterparts.

In July 2012, Cottage Life Media and OP Publishing of Vancouver negotiated a swap by which OP's Cottage magazine moved over the Cottage Life Media (and Explore magazine to OP). It was clearly a means to a somewhat more national buy and readership than the heavily Ontario-based Cottage Life could offer advertisers. Cottage Life has a paid circulation of 70,000; Cottage's circulation is 20,000.

The rebranding of Cottage and the creation of a complementary consumer show is part of a national strategy being pursued aggressively by Cottage Life Media after it was purchased by Blue Ant Media in the fall of 2013. This includes the launch of a digital specialty TV channel with the Cottage Life brand.

“While Cottage is already western Canada’s leading recreational living publication, as Cottage Life West, readers can expect the same strong western Canadian focus, but even more great content thanks to the added expertise and resources Cottage Life Media brings to the table” said Peter Robson, editor, Cottage Life West [in a release.]

The first Edmonton Cottage Life & Cabin Show (a nod to the western habit of referring to their second homes as cabins) will be April 25-27 at the Edmonton Expo Centre and is expected to feature more than 100 exhibitors. Consumer shows with cottage lifestyle products and services have been a major strength of the Toronto-based Cottage Life Media for 21 years, including its Spring Cottage Life Show attracts more than 30,000 attendees and 500 exhibitors and the Fall Cottage Life Show with more than 10,000 attendees and over 200 exhibitors. The new Edmonton show will tap into a strengthening western Canadian market of recreational property owners. A report compiled in 2012 by Westcoast CED Consulting Ltd. says the resource-based economy in Alberta and Saskatchewan is creating strong markets for recreational properties and fuelling demand for log and timber frame home builders.

“More than 365,000 people in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan own a vacation property in Canada,” said Al Zikovitz, president, Cottage Life Media. “Our objective is to be the leading media brand offering the best in local content for readers and show attendees, along with fully-integrated media solutions for advertisers and exhibitors.”

Saltscapes magazine going down the road to host East Coast consumer expo in Toronto

Expanding the magazine brand into a consumer show is a trend that many mid- and large-sized publishers have been following increasingly. And Saltscapes has been one of them, launching and running a successful annual Saltscapes Expo, now in its 8th year of celebrating all things Atlantic Canadian. (This year's event in Halifax  is April 27 - 29.)

Now it is going down the road, so to speak, or rather taking its show on the road, to hosting Saltscapes Toronto, its first East Coast Expo in Toronto at the Toronto Waterfront Redpath Festival from June 21 to 28 at HTO Park. It's promoting downeast seafood, hospitality, music and vacation opportunities, in partnership with Nova Scotia's department of economic and rural development and tourism, Taste of Nova Scotia and the province of New Brunswick.

According to co-publishers Jim and Linda Gourlay, they expect to see their share of the 750,000 people expected to be on the Toronto waterfront that weekend.

"We have discovered (and it makes perfect sense) that while we are engaged in our core business, we have the happy collateral effect of providing the most credible and effective tourism brochure ever assembled for this region," they said it their letter in the front of the March-April issue.

Exhibitors selling products onsite will be charged $1,500 for a booth, otherwise it is $1,000. An information kit and contract is provided online.

Quarto Communications's consumer shows for all four of its titles will run simultaneously

This November (26 - 28), for the first time, Quarto Communications is putting consumer shows for all four of its titles -- Cottage Life, Explore, Canadian Home Workshop and Outdoor Canada -- under one "big top", running simultaneously side-by-side at Toronto's International Centre. The public will be able to attend all four for one price.

It's never been tried before but we know there's a lot of overlap in these markets," says general manager Terry Sellwood. "The hope is that it gets as big as the spring show [Cottage Life]. It's exciting and fits in with our long term goal regarding our Outdoor Canada brand."

Essentially it means that the Outdoor Canada Show and the Explore Adventure & Travel Show will join the established Cottage Life fall show and Canadian Home Workshop's show, moved from the spring. 

The four magazine have a combined reach of more than 3 million unduplicated readers, but Quarto thinks there is also a real synergy between the audiences and that a multi-title advertising package will appeal to advertisers .

The spring and fall Cottage Life shows have been going for 17 years and now have a combined annual attendance of 40,000.

Sellwood said that details of the shows are being nailed down now, but will definitely showcase features that have come to be expected from Cottage Life and Canadian Home Workshop have as well as  some featured writers and bloggers from both Explore and Outdoor Canada. 

Canadian Living to host cooking stage at Green Living magazine's consumer show

In something of a crossover from one publisher to another, Transcontinental Media's Canadian Living magazine has announced that it will be hosting the cooking stage at the 2010 Toronto Green Living show in Toronto, April 23 to 25. Canadian Living editors and cooks will demonstrate in what is the first time the magazine has participated in the show, an extension of Green Living magazine, published by Green Living Enterprises, a division of Key Publishers Company Ltd.