South Beach Food and Fine Festival, Feb 24-27, 2011 Miami,FLSouth Beach Food and Fine Festival SITTING DOWN TO BUSINESSBusiness on the menu at food-and-wine fest
South Beach Food and Fine Festival BY BRETT GRAFFbrett@thehomeeconomist.comEditor's note: This is the first in a series of monthly columns by Miamian Brett Graff, a former government economist, on doing business across the table. At the Food Network South Beach Wine & Food Festival, some of the corporate-to-customer relationship building will be fairly obvious. For starters, the entire four-day affair wears the name of a television operation. The 10-year-old festival is co-hosted by distributor Southern Wine and Spirits, whose vice president, Lee Brian Schrager, founded the event. And at the Burger Bash, Amstel Light has paid for the right to serve beer to 3,200 people willing to pay $200 a piece to almost endlessly eat hamburgers - perhaps their product's culinary compliment. But there's an undercurrent of business being done at these events that's less evident and equally powerful. Look carefully and you'll find that non-food professionals - real estate brokers, accountants and lawyers - are also shelling out big money for the chance to do some relationship building of their own. "It gives me the ability to network with existing clients as well as meeting new people with similar interests," says Mike Kosnitzky, a partner at the law firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, LLP, who with his wife will attend the Burger Bash, the Perrier-Jouët BubbleQ and the Whole Foods Grand Tasting Village. "There's something to be said about being able to network with the people you do business with in a relaxed setting." Events such as the South Beach Wine & Food Festival - not to mention other South Florida experiences including the Sony Ericsson Open, the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Art Basel Miami Beach and the occasional Super Bowl - give Miami a unique edge when it comes to doing business. Even though the professional climate here is sometimes dismissed for headquartering a relatively low number of Fortune 500 companies, its tropical climate nurtures the kind of extravaganzas that attract successful people. Ticket prices for this week's food-and-wine fest aren't cheap - the Bank of America Tribute Dinner honoring superchief Alain Ducasse costs $500 per person- and that turns large stretches of the city into unofficial conferences packed with the kind of VIPs that come out of their corner offices and fly in from all over the world. That's one reason Kosnitzky's feel that spending $1,500 on tickets for himself and his wife is a sold investment. "It's a convention concept but it's not, you know, The Dental Association," he says. "It's people who are coming together because they have a general interest in food and wine. And it's high net worth people who can afford to go. And those are the people that tend to need tax and estate planning lawyers." This sheer number of wealthy people, combined with the festival's concept of keeping their glasses full, gives the South Beach Wine & Food Festival a recipe for doing businesses that's even better than a long lunch. "If you see 10 people, that's 10 different lunches," says Kosnitzky. "Plus another advantage is you see people over several days. And then they're introducing you to the people they've met." Though the food-and-wine fete is a benefit for Florida International University that is expected to raise $3 million this year, the business climate is so productive that sponsors who get tickets with their sponsor packages often buy additional tickets, says Randall C. Fisher, president of Culinary Related Entertainment and Marketing LLC, which produces the festival. "These events sell out quickly,'' he says. "It's the perfect party - the Burger Bash is a 37,000 square foot tent on the beach with live music.'' If someone gets into an event because of their accounting firm, Fisher figures, that would help them stay loyal to that firm. You don't have to tell that to Miguel G. Farra, head of the tax department for Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra. He's bringing two clients to the Burger Bash and putting the $800 on the company tab as an entertainment expense. "It creates good will," says Farra, who also gets a box at the Sony Ericsson Open in March for similar client-appreciation purposes. "While you're drinking wine you'll discuss business issues that you have." And if you happen to make money from food-related work, then the festival essentially delivers potential customers to your door. Lyle Stern, president of Koniver Stern Group - which helped celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse lease his eatery's spot at The Loews on Miami Beach and also secured culinary star Daniel Boulud's bistro's inside the new J.W. Marriott Marquis - doesn't go to a single event. But he does work the festival by meeting with chefs and introducing them potential restaurant spaces. "I will tell you that some of the better conversations that happened with the better chefs started at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival two and three years ago," he says. "I can see these chefs in New York, L.A. and Chicago. But it's nice that we're here and I can sit down with a few of the chefs we're trying to recruit. It gives us an opportunity we wouldn't otherwise have."
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