Take the Next Step

Somebody recently told me “the economy is nothing except confidence.” If the market has confidence that things will turn out for the best, they will. If the market is panicky, things probably won't turn out all that well.

If you believe this thumbnail assessment is accurate, the current numbers don't really matter because if investors, buyers, seller – whatever – have confidence in the future, you know the numbers will get better.

By numbers, I mean the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a company's quarterly earnings report or, in our case, Tradeshow Week's Quarterly Report of Tradeshow Statistics. The third-quarter report was released two weeks ago in our Nov. 3 issue. For the first time in six years, all three indexes we use to measure tradeshow performance dropped for the second quarter in a row.

Some of the shows that contribute to that quarterly average had particularly rough years. Many events associated in some way with the retail sector saw double-digit declines across the board. Shows in a handful of specific destinations were hit harder than others.

And, to take care of all the bad news right away and be done with it, common sense tells us the numbers will get worse before they get better. Many managers of shows held in the first half of this year said they dodged bullets because major exhibitors already had made their space commitments, and it was too late to back out of them.

However, as the economic downturn drags on, some of the decisions on the part of exhibitors and attendees to, maybe, take a year or two off are starting to become evident. I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to see declines, certainly into the first or second quarter, that appear quite dismal.

Many in the business world, essentially your customers, have for several months felt like deer frozen in the headlights. Events that didn't seem to have much to do with them put them in positions where they felt like they had little room to maneuver and little sense of how long things would seem this bad.

However, with this historic presidential election finally behind us, the gloom may be lifting. It's not necessarily because President-elect Barack Obama has some secret plan to solve every problem in the world, but the sense of uncertainty – something markets don't like – that has prevailed during the past few months should ease a bit.

Likewise, on the showfloor, there is a reason for the core constituents of the community a show serves to be optimistic. Exhibitors may buy less space in the immediate future, exhibitors whose businesses are struggling might drop out all together and companies will send fewer employees to the show – but they'll all still be there.

The No. 1 function of any event a TSW reader is involved in is to help buyers and sellers make deals. Make that easy for your customers and nothing else matters.

Michael Hart is editor-in-chief of Tradeshow Week. He can be reached at hartm@reedbusiness.com.