It all began with a Fiat 127 over 25 years ago…
Mike Agostini was an exhibition organiser in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, who had always been vocal about the need for an industry magazine to help share ideas and experiences.
In the early 90s, he decided to work from home and wrote a couple of pilot issues of a magazine which he called Marketplace. His youngest son Julian Agostini, who had been a post boy for Montgomery’s in Manchester Square, joined him to try and make the project work.
Some key stakeholders in exhibitions told Mike that there was no exhibition industry and were, therefore not supportive of the project. But Mike and Julian continued to build the community via a series of forums and roundtables that they called the Supper Club.
The father and son partnership then launched a directory of services for organisers in late 1994 but Mike died of cancer suddenly in February 1995 leaving Julian with his brother’s bedroom for an office, a little directory and the germ of an idea … and so what is now Mash Media was born, under its original moniker The Exhibitor Club.
The first job was to build up the directory which generated sufficient funds to be able to launch the first ever exhibition industry magazine, Exhibition News…now just EN of course.
