West Chester, Pa. -- Like Willie Nelson, QVC can't
wait to get on the road again. In 1998, its road show will tour various food festivals and
restaurants, to produce live local remotes for programming under the title 'Local
Flavors.'
'QVC's Local Flavors Tour' is actually the
latest in a series of QVC traveling shows. The most famous one was the 'Quest for
America's Best' as part of QVC Local's '50 in 50' tours -- 50
states in 50 weeks -- in 1995 and 1996. Those tours generated hundreds of new products
hawked on-air by the shopping network.
A special truck with a self-contained kitchen will go on
the tour, along with the QVC Local, which will provide the production and satellite-uplink
support.
This tour will be a less-tiring 25-market trek, starting in
Feb. 8 with California's Napa Valley, where QVC will do a live show from Greystone,
The Culinary Institute of America. Two weeks later, it will appear at the Fancy Foods Show
in San Francisco, said network executives.
QVC will also be at the 'Taste of Chicago' event
in Chicago in June and stage its own event in New Orleans.
QVC will try for affiliate and advertiser linkups wherever
possible, said Irv Kalick, the company's senior vice president of affiliate sales and
marketing, who added that two tie-in sweepstakes are possible.
None of the series' two-hour shows, showcasing cooking
tips, cookware and kitchen gadgets, will be repeated, but the executives said there's
a possibility there may be, at the end of 1998, 'some sort of [tie-in]
cookbook,' said Al Ulozas, QVC's vice president of affiliate sales and
marketing.
