Kind of a play on words but I think a tradeshow I attended Friday is indicative of the state of the United States and our economy.  I have been hitting this same industry trade show for over ten years.  Three years ago the gifts being given away were so nice I felt guilty taking them home with me.  Two years ago one group was giving away a free vacation every two hours.  This year the nicest gift I could find were foam can coolers!   Poking around I saw two which if you go by the lowest total purchase price might have cost the booth 50 cents each.  When you look at the Deluxe Collapsible Koozie Can Kooler you realize pretty quickly how far and how fast things have fallen.  From two thousand dollars to fifty cents in a year or two.  You think they could have at least flipped for The Original Koozie Can Kooler or one of the other items out there.   Here is a helpful hint for those out there looking to do these things, do not give away something that is such a commodity nobody cares to use it, looking at that site I found I like the Collapsible Koozie Bottle Kooler which steps it up a notch and gives people a little more to talk about and look at over the old foldable.

 

I have a friend in the booth business.  They break down the booths and set them up for companies that display their stuff in the booths you see at all the shows.  Their business year to date is down around thirty percent.   Their suppliers are all down thirty or forty percent.  At this show I got to talking to the facilities manager who said they have had fewer shows this spring than at any time since he has had the job in 1975.  They have had more cancellations than anyone can ever remember.   Las Vegas is suffering through the worst period in the boom history of the City since the 1950's.   Shows all over the City are only filling to half capacity.  Hotels are going out of business and people are packing up and leaving at a record pace.  Yet we have all this supposed good news in the economy last week.  I heard Robert Reich talking the other day about the fallacy of this recent supposed recovery.  If you have the chance to catch his words please do as he is a voice of reason amongst all of those looking to continue the same shams that we have had going for the last several years.

 

Back to trade shows, you can check out companies such as Geiger to find a local rep in your area for the types of things I mentioned above.   There are a bunch of others out there.  They are all hurting just like the trade show people.  The negative impacts of all those cancelled junkets is hitting everyone connected to these businesses very hard.  Same goes for the changes in big Pharma where they are no longer allowed to get gifts.  More good ideas poorly exeucuted.  If Congress really wanted to help the public make the drug companies publish every single study they ever did or are doing with a particular drug, let the market worry about how much they spend on junkets.  Anyway, Adventures in Advertising has local reps everywhere and if you like the only groups the custom koozies the group above have were the least expensive I saw anywhere tonight.

 

Here is to hoping the economy continues to improve and that we are not playing one big shell game at the banks again.  I have a hunch in the end Mr. Reich will be more right than those running the equity markets higher lately.