Fewer Gifts Under Calif. Show's Tree

LOS ANGELES—The California Gift Show, held July 18-21 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, isn't the first show in the midst of a tough economy to post a decline in exhibitors and attendees.

According to Chris Gowe, vice president of George Little Management, a dmg world media company, this year's show had 948 exhibitors and about 18,000 attendees, drops of 20 percent and 18 percent, respectively, compared with 2007.

It also saw declines last year, moving from No. 105 on the 2008 Tradeshow Week 200 (with 236,811 net square feet) to No. 132 this year (203,639 net sq. ft.).

“There are a variety of reasons why it's down,” Gowe said. “This is the whole industry. It's not specific to any one market.”

The afternoon of the first day of this year's show, exhibitor Stacey Colburn, a sales representative for Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Lion Ribbon Company, played computer solitaire and bemoaned the lack of customers.

“It's not going well,” Colburn said. “Honestly, the whole reputation of the show has gone down the drain.”

According to Colburn, who has exhibited in the show for 15 years, it used to span the entire convention center, not the few halls it was confined to this year.

“People have been pulling out,” she added. “The July show used to be my best show because it's when I would write all my Christmas volume. It's the first day, so we'll see what happens.”

Exhibitors who met with some of their bigger buyers on Friday had different experiences. “So far, so good for us; steady, but not a mad rush,” said Rick Melendez, general manager of Ontario, Calif.-based George S. Chen. “The economy's slow, but there was no question of us coming. Our customers expect us to be here.”

Although there weren't that many people in the larger, exclusively trade section of the show the first day, there were crowds of people downstairs in Kentia Hall's cash-and-carry section.

It was a double-edged sword, according to Larry Hill, a Los Angeles-based sales representative for Troy Designs. “Even though I'll do a lot of cash-and-carry business, I won't do a lot of big-order writing,” Hill said. “Now, people mainly do personal shopping. I used to do more orders in the past.”

Cheryl Long, owner of Bastrop, Texas-based Cheryl Long Design/Pure Vintage, also complained about the lack of sales downstairs. “This is extremely slow,” Long said. “I've been doing wholesale for 20 years, and usually cash-and-carry is slammed on opening day because people want first pick.”

Gowe noted that the gift show industry has been hit with more than its share of challenges in the past few years:

• wholesalers whose business models have been rendered obsolete and have gone out of business
• industry consolidation
• exhibitors and attendees cutting back on show participation
• the popularity of big-box stores

“We are a microcosm of something happening on a broader level,” Gowe said.

Industry changes have impacted some of GLM's other West Coast gift shows, including the San Francisco Intl. Gift Fair, held July 26-29 at Moscone Center, one week after the California Gift Show.

Dmg world media bought the San Francisco show, along with the Seattle Gift Show and the Portland Gift & Accessories Show, earlier this year from Western Exhibitors. Numbers from the recent San Francisco show weren't available by press time, but last year's event dropped from No. 127 to No. 148 on the TSW 200 with declines across the board in number of exhibitors, attendees and net square footage.

By the third day of the Los Angeles show, more exhibitors were giving it positive reviews. “We've had a wonderful experience,” said Scott Christopher, owner of Santa Fe, N.M.-based Christopher Art Cards. “The sales have been good, and the leads are positive. We've written several nice orders.”

Colburn, no longer playing solitaire, said sales picked up some. “I had four orders all day Friday and Saturday and eight orders on Sunday, so it was a little better,” she added. Still, Colburn said, that's about half of what she usually does.

Colburn said she planned to check out the World Market Center's Las Vegas Market, held July 28-Aug.1.

She wasn't the only one of the California Gift Show's exhibitors who told TSW they were heading to Las Vegas last week.

World Market Center officials might have been waiting for them, too. The company scheduled a press conference after TSW went to press. Andrew Maiden, a World Market Center spokesman, would only say in advance that one of the subjects of the briefing would be “gifts.”