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At the first Rib America Festival in Des Moines, Iowa Events Center General Manager Matt Homan and Festival Partners LLC managing partner Frank LoPresti began talking about organizing another event centered on food and wine. They had seen similar shows done throughout the nation, but nothing like it in Des Moines.

Eighteen months later, the Celebrity Food & Wine Expo will take place this weekend at Hy-Vee Hall and will feature six celebrity chefs, plus several local chefs, about 100 national and local exhibitors, a sampling of 200 wines, and demonstrations on how to make food, wine, beer and more.

“It’s different than any other trade show or consumer show we’ve ever done in there,” Homan said. “It’s got a unique feel to it that we’re bringing in with these celebrity chefs.”

The Food & Wine Expo is the second event the Iowa Events Center is organizing itself and is a much bigger operation than the Rib America Festival.

“We’re putting some money at risk to try to bring in a new event,” Homan said, with more than $150,000 spent on the celebrity chefs.

But this could become a new trend as the Events Center looks to bring more programming to its facilities. “I think new events are part of the great aspect of having facilities like this in town,” Homan said. “Polk County has done a great job of building these facilities and for us to program them with something that we’re busy with on a continual basis, … I think it’s part of the great vision Polk County had in building these facilities.”

Though some food and wine shows attract people from all over the country, the focus of Des Moines’ Food & Wine Expo in its first year is to showcase local businesses and restaurants to encourage people to patronize those businesses in the future.

In addition, Homan has already heard that two of the celebrity chefs are looking at hosting shows in Iowa in the future.

Ingredients of an event

The idea that began with a casual conversation turned into a search for talent, the creation of a budget, a push to sell booths and other event planning measures that involved about 20 of the Events Center’s 72 staff members.

The celebrity chefs were selected based on who Homan and LoPresti felt would still be popular a year after they booked them and attract a diverse crowd, which proved hard given the growing popularity of cooking shows on the Food Network and other cable outlets.

“When we were doing this, chefs were so hot that their prices were literally going up overnight,” Homan said.

To help pay for the celebrity chefs and other expenses, the Events Center is selling booths for the three-day event at $1,200 apiece, or $1,000 if the business offers something to sample, plus making money from ticket sales.

Community joins in

Being Robin Moyer’s first consumer expo, she doesn’t know what to expect. But she was attracted to the idea of purchasing a booth to promote her business, RAWphoriaLIVE, because of the attention the raw food movement will receive at the show. Local chef Sheree Clark will give a demonstration on Friday on how to make fettuccini Alfredo with zucchini squash.

Moyer and her business partner, Kelly Ayers, plan to have samples of their raw-food products for people to try, as well as gift-basket examples and organic products to buy.

“Hopefully it will be good recognition for us,” she said.

Andrew Meeks is still finalizing the 30-minute cooking demonstration he’ll give on Friday but a part of it will be a braised Niman Ranch lamb shank. He decided to support the show because of the recognition it will bring to his restaurants, Sage and Torroco Italian Grill, as well as the benefits to the community.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said. “They have some very recognizable people coming in, and I think through the advent of the Food Network, everybody’s kind of becoming a foodie a little bit.”

Homan sees the event as a long-term addition to the community, and is already looking at which celebrity chefs to bring in next year. He also is starting to think about other events the Events Center can put on, such as a big New Year’s Eve bash in a couple of years.

“I think the creation of events like this is part of our future of what we’re going to have to do,” Homan said, “and I kind of enjoy it too, to be honest with you. My staff might not see it the same way, but I think it’s fun.”