Not Even Good Promotions Can Save This Economy

Well I keep tooting the horn of a company I found several months ago so I might as well do it one more time before I leave for a two week vacation.  I had our last tradeshow today and once again the promo items we received from our new provider arrived and were a huge hit.  I made the mistake of giving the wrong address and later confirmed the wrong address yet through a lot of hard work on the part of Promo Managers they got the package to me by re-routing it through UPS.   A couple of years ago I dealt with another company where they screwed up the address and basically washed their hands of it so this was a pleasant change.  I did 500 padfolios which looked great.   That kind of ends the good news.

 We ordered 500 because last year we ordered 400 promo items for this show and we ran out halfway through.  This time we came home with three boxes not because people did not want them.  We gave some people two or three but there were just no visitors.   Across the board all of my partners and affiliate businesses are reporting a huge downturn in business over the last two or three weeks to the point of being worse than anything in the last fifteen or twenty years.  Most are saying literally the business has just vanished.  One of my large customers whom I have organized tradeshow events with for over fourteen years is not attending their industry show this year.   The costs due to high fuel prices are too high to ship and fly everyone in and the returns low.  This appears to be a trend as several other industry insiders report the same type of dwindling returns.

People that would typically drive to shows cannot afford $3.50 per gallon and most see prices going higher which means they have less interest in going.  With prices expected to tip over four dollars a gallon by spring it is just going to get worse.  With the news today of a huge bank bailout you have to wonder how close to the edge we are of a historic failing.  One of my other longtime clients had already pulled the plug on one of their summer events as they cannot justify a celebration in the face of such terrible financial news.  

I am on my way to fun in the sun for two weeks.  We made the reservations forgetting that this is spring break time so this should be an interesting few weeks down where it is warm.  I am pretty certain things are going to get worse before I get back.   For the first time in maybe ten or more years I leave with the fear that business many not return to the levels we saw earlier in the decade until the beginning of the next decade.   I also am coming to the realization that the economy of 2010 is going to be totally different than what most of us know.